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THE

SMOKED

YANK,

BT

MELVIN GRIGS BY.

sioux FALLS:

DAKOTA BELL PUBLISHING CO.

1888.

COPYRIGHT 1888,

BY
MELVIN GRIGSBY.

Dedication.

To the Real Chivalry of the South, the old " fiunties " and "Uncles

find

Ilalarnus Yaung Men,
Illho sa Generously and Bravely,

fit the Risk of Cruel Punishment and Sometimes of Life,
Fed and Ularmed and Hid and Guided,

Escaped Union Prisoners,
Ms a Token of Gratitude, this Little Ualume

Is
Tenderly Dedicated

By the fiuthor,

PUBLISHER'S NOTICE.

Not long ago the publisher of this book and several others met in the
office of Mr. Grigsby. The subject of our conversation was the reviving
interest in war stories and reminiscences, evidenced by the prominence given
to that class of literature by all the leading magazines of the day. Inci-
dently, Mr. Grigsby remarked that he had, in manuscript, a book written
several years ago, narrating what his sons called, his " Adventures in the
War," which he designed, sometime, to have published in pamphlet form
for distribution among his relatives and friends.

Having previously heard that his experiences as a soldier were of an
unusually varied and interesting character, my curiosity was aroused and,
yielding to my solicitations, Mr. Grigsby finally permitted me to see his
manuscript. A careful reading convinced me that were it published in
book form it would meet with a favorable reception, not only by the
relatives and personal friends of the author, but also by thousands of
veterans and sons of veterans, by all, in fact, who take an interest in the
stirring incidents of our civil war.

Frankly believing this, I persuaded Mr. Grigsby, to have the book
published under the title of " The Smoked Yank," and agreed to be re-
sponsible for the success of the enterprise. Whether or not my judgment
was well-founded, is for the public to determine.

To my request for a preface, the author replied: "You have assumed
the responsibility, and if you deem that explanations or apologies are due
the reader, make them yourself." The publisher has none to offer.

SAM T. CLOVER.

Sioux FALLS, DAKOTA, May, 1888.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PAGE.

Tells How this Book Came to be Written. 13

CHAPTER II.
I Rebel in Order to Fight Rebellion — "The Girl I Left Behind Me." - 17

CHAPTER III.

Camp Washburn — I Get My Name in Print — Privates Eat Sandwiches
in the Rain, While Officers have Champagne Under Shelter — Benton
Barracks — On the March — I Make a Rash Promise. - - - 25

CHAPTER IV.

Helena — A Slave Owner in a Bad Fix — "Forninst the Government "-
Plantation Records — Memphis, Prohibition in the Army — -Helping a

Friend to Beat the Quartermaster. 31

CHAPTER V.

Vicksburg — Another Case of Beating U.S. — A Runaway Horse Carries
Me Into Close Quarters — Jackson and Canton — Have Trouble with

Uncle Tommy and Leave the Regiment. 38

CHAPTER VI.

I Get a Leave of Absence and Have Some Fun with the Boys — Helping
Planters to Market Cotton — "An Atheist's Laugh's a Poor Exchange
for Deity Offended " — Captured by Guerillas. - ... ^

CHAPTER VII.

Samples of Chivalry — Joking with a Johnny — Helping to Fill Up the
Sets — A Wearisome March Without Food, Except for Reflection —

Too Angry to Eat, 55

CHAPTER VIII.
"To the Victor Belongs the Spoils" — I Lose My Suspenders — A Jolly

Rebel Rascal — A Captain of the Horse Marines. .... 66

viii.

CHAPTER IX.

Moved to Cahaba, Alabama — A Little Leaven for the Loaf — I Borrow
Books, Write Notes, and Become Sentimental — A Promising Ro-
mance Nipped in the Bud. 73

CHAPTER X.

Cahaba Re-visited in 1884 — A Delightful Ride — The Freedmen of the
South — A Deserted Village — An Old Mansion — Mrs. Gardner,
" The Friend of the Unfortunate." - - - - ' - - - 78

CHAPTER XI.

We Leave Cahaba — A Song Battle — "Let the Damn Yanks Starve "-
We Enter Andersonville — Walking Mummies and Smoked Skele-
tons— Discouraging Prospects. .... - 88

CHAPTER XII.
" Answer at Roll-Call, Draw Rations, and Fight Lice — Scenes at the

Dead-Line. 96

CHAPTER XIII.

Extra Rations — Flanking-Out — Cooked Rations — The Huckster's Cry
and the Peddler's Call — The Plymouth Pilgrims — Dead Yankees
Become Articles of Merchandise — I Buy a Corpse and Taste Pure
Air — Repeating. - - - 99

CHAPTER XIV.
The Raiders — " Limber Jim " — The Regulators — Execution of the

Raiders. - - - - - - m

CHAPTER XV.

Escapes — Blood-Hounds — Tortures — Digging Tunnels — A Benedict
Arnold — Shooting a Cripple — The Hospital — Sick-Call — A Small-
Pox Scare 120

CHAPTER XVI.
Condition of Prison in July and August — Rebel Statistics — Why We

Were Not Exchanged — Andersonville Revenged — This a Republic. 127
CHAPTER XVII.

Outlines of a Picture. jjg

CHAPTER XVIII.

How I Manage to Live — My Bunk-Mate Goes to the Hospital — I Secure
a Corner Lot and Get Into Trade — Sherman's Fine-Tooth Combs
and Scissors — Removal to Florence, South Carolina. - - - 140

ix.

CHAPTER XIX.
I Go for Water and Escape — A Faithful People — A Novel Character —

A Comical Hero. - - - - - - - 149

CHAPTER XX.
"Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned" — A Badly Scared

Negro — Captured By a Fourteen- Year-Old Boy — In a Felon's Cell. 159

CHAPTER XXI.
Another Stockade — A Meaner Man Than Wirz — Out On Parole — The

Smuggled Steer — Notes From a Diary. 169

CHAPTER XXII.

Parole of Honor Played Out — A Scheme For Escape — All is Fair in
Love and War — Bribing a Yankee With a Rebel's Money — I go

After Shakes and Do Not Return. 181

CHAPTER XXIII.

Blood-Hounds in Sight — Wake Up the Wrong Family — Gentlemen of
(Very Little) Color — I Play That I Am a Slave Owner and Talk

With Rebel Soldiers. - ' . - « 190

CHAPTER XXIV.

A Pressing Invitation — I Paddle a Canoe — Am Caught in a " Niggah
Qua'tah" — A Chivalrous Lady Pleads My Cause — A Night in a
Swamp. ------------ 196

CHAPTER XXV.

I Steal Mules and Take a Ride— A Well Laid Scheme "Gang Aft

Aglee" — Some Dangerous Places — Crossing the Salkahatchie. - 207
CHAPTER XXVI.

" The Girl I Left Behind Me " — The Grand Old Flag and the Boys in

Blue — I Am Dubbed The Smoked Yank. ----- 219

THE SMOKED YANK.

THE SMOKED YANK

CHAPTER I.

TELLS HOW THIS BOOK CAME TO BE WRITTEN.

For nearly twenty years I have been about to write this
book. I came home from the war in 1865, a boy of only
twenty years, but with a discharge that showed almost four
years service in the army. How vividly I recall this scene —
getting off the the stage at my native village I started to my
country home on foot. Ascending a hill, I saw over the top
a team coming towards me, Kit and Betty, old friends of my
boyhood. My first rides were on their backs. But who is
driving? Can it be father? He looks too old to be father.
I stopped in the road. The bowed head was raised. Who
could paint the changes that came over his face as he came
toward me. He has told me since that he was thinking of me
and wondering if he would ever hear of me again, when, rais-
ing his head to try and drive away his sorrowful thoughts, he
saw me standing in the road. His lost boy. More than a
year of anxious watching and waiting since those lines had
been received saying, " Your son has been taken prisoner,"
and in all that time not another word, and then when trying
to resolve to give me up, to raise his eyes and see me stand-
ing in the road, it was indeed a surprise.

My sons, never keep back glad tidings from anxious
parents to give them a greater surprise. I ought to have sent
them word of my safety at the earliest possible moment after

,4 THE SMOKED TANK.

reaching the Union lines. That was twenty years ago "and
your grandfather looks as young today as he did then — he
had been worrying. Coming home from the war an escaped
prisoner — supposed to have died in Andersonville, I told my
story very willingly to willing ears for awhile and then it got
to be tedious even to me.

For several weeks I was the hero of that neighborhood.
Visitors thronged to my father's house to see the escaped pris-
oner and to hear of Andersonville and other rebel prison pens,
and of my escape. To each new party, I told the story until
to me it grew old and stale, and, to avoid continuous repeti-
tion, I declared my intention of writing it up for publication.
When I tried to do so, I found that to hold a little audience of
friends and relatives in seeming rapt attention, was vastly
easier than to write a connected and readable narrative of the
same incidents. I often began but never advanced to the end
of a satisfactory beginning, and finally postponed the work
until I should acquire through reading and education a better
command of language.

Thus I became a veritable procrastinator — though con-
tinually postponed, the purpose of writing my experiences in
the war and publishing the narrative in book form was always
present — I was always about to begin. To new friends and
acquaintances of my school . life, I would occasionally relate
some incident of prison life or escape and seldom found unwill-
ing ears to listen, or lack of encouragement when I mentioned
my intention of writing a book. Whether they were, many of
them, bored by my monopolizing the conversation and making
myself the big ego, and thought the readiest way to escape
further infliction was to advise and encourage the book plan,
has often since been a question in my mind, especially when I

THE SMOKED TANK. 15

have realized how easily I find it to be thoroughly bored in a
similar way.

Nevertheless, that self-appointed task was never more
than postponed. It has continued to be both my waking
dream and the cause of much self-condemnation for not having
performed the work earlier.

At first the fancied distinction to be acquired was prob-
ably my strongest inducement to write. Later the idea of
great gain by means of such a book was not absent. But now
as I begin, 1 trust for the last time, to carry out the long-
cherished and often abandoned scheme, neither the desire for
notoriety nor the hope of gain is the moving cause.

Other hopes and dreams and plans of those twenty years
that are gone have not been fruitless — my home is not now
my father's house — there has been a cradle in my own, babies
on my knee, and, now two boys, one nine and one ten, with
the life of Alexander, of Hannibal, and of Csesar fresh in mind,
are ever teasing me to tell them of my life as a soldier.

" P-apa, did you have any adventures when you were in
the war?" says Sioux. " O, yes, I had a good many such as
they were." " Tell them to us," says George, " we would
rather hear about yours than read those in books." And when
I tell them some and then speak of time for bed, I know from
the look of keen interest in their bright eyes and the reluctance
with which they go that they have not been bored. And I
tell them that I will begin at once and write my adventures,
as they call them, all out, and have a little book printed for
them to read.

" Oh, wont that be jolly," says George, " to have a book
all about papa." "And I guess mamma and grandpa, too, and
lots of other folks will want to read it," says Sioux.

1 6 THE SMOKED YANK.

They go to bed and I begin. If I do not finish before
these boys are too old or too wise to care for so plain a tale in
such crude fashion told, then perhaps boys of theirs may come
and prize the book grandfather wrote, and perhaps some old
soldier, worn with toil and weary of the present days, may let
it lead him back to the old camp ground or prison pen, and
thus beguile a pleasant hour.

CHAPTER II.

I REBEL IN ORDER TO FIGHT REBELLION. "THE GIRL I LEFT

BEHIND ME."

As it is easier to describe the actions of men than it is to
set forth the thoughts, feelings, and motives that moved them
to action, so I expect to find much less difficulty in narrating
all that I did or saw, worthy of mention while a soldier, than
in telling why I became one.

I had not passed my sixteenth birthday when the war
began. I was a farmer's boy. Had been brought up on a
farm near the village of Potosi, in Grant county, Wisconsin.
A few winters at school in the log school house of our district
and two or three terms at the school in the village, had been
my opportunities for education. You, boys, have already
read more books than I had at that time. Such books for boys
as Abbott's Series of Histories had not then been written, and
probably would not have found their way to many log farm
houses if they had been. But I had read the History of the
American Revolution, had spoken at school the famous speech
of Patrick Henry, and I loved the soul-stirring strains of the
Star Spangled Banner. My grandfather was a soldier in the
war of 1812. His grandfather, who was known as "Revo-
lutionary John," fought in the war of the Revolution. Many
of the leading incidents of the history of the country, espe-
cially of the wars and of the early settlements in Virginia and

!8 THE SMOKED YANK.

Kentucky had been handed down from father to son in stories
and traditions, and to these I had always been an eager
listener.

I was well posted too, on the political questions that had
for a long time agitated the country, for I had been a constant
reader of Horace Greeley's Weekly New York Tribune. I
can remember well the drubbings I used to get at the village
school when the boys divided for snow-balling, into Fremont-
ers and Buchananites. The Fremonters, to which I belonged,
were largely in the minority. I can remember too, the woes
of "bleeding Kansas," and how I used to urge my father to
take me with him out to Kansas so that we might help to put
down the " border ruffians " from Missouri.

The firing on Fort Sumpter was quickly followed by
Lincoln's proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand vol-
unteers. These were to serve for three months. A company
was at once formed at Potosi. I wanted to go. The men
who had so . long been threatening to dissolve the Union
because they could not have political matters their own way,
had at last fired upon the national flag, upon the Stars and
Stripes.

As I saw in imagination the bombardment of Fort Sump-
ter, and the hauling down of the dear old flag, it seemed to
me that I could see too, the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers,
the "starving time" of the Jamestown settlement, the Indian
massacres; the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill and
Brandy wine; Washington crossing the Delaware; the awful
winter at Valley Forge; the heroic deeds of Marion, and
Sumpter, and Jasper, and Newton; the glorious victories of
our navy in the War of 1812; every scene of hardship and
of heroism that had helped to win for us and to preserve for

THE SMOKED TANK. 19

us our proud position among the nations of the earth, of which
that dear old flag was the emblem, came trouping up in mem-
ory. " The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave " had indeed been " touched " but
not " by the better angels of our nature."

Such were the thoughts and feelings th,at impelled me
with an almost irresistible impulse to volunteer as a soldier
and help to chastise the traitors who had insulted the flag.
Such, at least, are the thoughts and feelings that I would have
described had I then attempted to explain why I wanted to
be a soldier.

There was another reason which I would not have given
then, and I cannot even now without a blush; I was desperately
in love. If there was any doubt whatever about my desire to
do battle for my country from purely patriotic motives, there
certainly was none about my readiness to go to the wars, or to
engage in any other affair of the knight-errantry order that
might win smiles of approval from the girl I loved.

But I could not go. I was the second in a family of
eight children, all girls, except myself and the youngest. My
father had gone to Pike's Peak, in the spring of 1860. In the
fall of that year he had started to cross the mountains and we
had not since heard from him — I could not leave my mother
with the management of the farm and the support of the
family on her hands. I saw that company formed in line,
dressed in their stylish new uniforms of gray, heard the fare-
well speeches; saw flags and swords presented, saw them re-
ceive the warmest of kisses from all the lovely maidens for
good-bye, and I turned away with a heavy heart, with tears
of sore regret, and went back to my dull farm-work.

That was my last summer's work on a farm, and I have

20 THE SMOKED TANK.

always been proud of the record I made. Besides putting in
and tending the crops on all the ploughed land, I had twelve
acres of land, on which there was a heavy growth of saplings
and underbrush, grubbed and broken. We raised an excel-
lent crop.

I did not neglect the farm, although my heart was not in
the work. No boy of adventurous disposition who has an
inherited love for dog, and horse, and gun, will ever be con-
tent on a farm while there is war in his own country. I had
owned a dog and gun, and had been a hunter from the time I
was eight years old, and I could ride like an Arab. My
leisure hours during that spring and summer were devoted to
such exercises as I thought would best fit me for the cavalry
service. I took lessons in sword exercise from a man in the
village, kept a young horse for my exclusive use and practiced
jumping him over fences and ditches, riding down steep hills
at full gallop, and shooting from his back.

The harvesting was all done and the grain ready for
stacking when father got home. He had been snowed up all
winter in the mountains of Colorado. My first thought was,
now I can go to the war. My cousin, James F. Ayars, had
enlisted in the 7th Wis. Infantry, and I tried hard to persuade
my father to let me go in the same company. He thought I
was too young — said that if I went into the army and survived
the war, my opportunity for securing an education would be
gone. He did not believe that a boy would retain a desire
for education through years of soldier life. He offered to
send me away to school, and as the academy to which he
proposed sending me was at Lancaster,]the county seat, where
the object of my boyish affections was then living, I concluded
to follow his advice, and accept his offer.

THE SMOKED TANK. 21

Early in September I was duly installed as one of the
pupils at the Academy, but I could not shake off the desire to
take part in the war. In the latter part of November, C. C.
Washburn, afterward General, came to Lancaster and made
arrangements to have a company of cavalry recruited in that
county. I went at once to the recruiting office. Was told
that I would not be taken without the written consent of my
father. How was this to be obtained? I sat in school that
afternoon with a book open before me thinking over the situa-
tion. Classes to which I belonged were called, but I was so
deeply engaged in meditation that I took no heed. All at once
the thought came to my mind that thousands of the young men
who were at the front had left schools and offices and clerk-
ships and by serving their country were losing opportunities
for education and for professional and business advancement —
that the country would have but few defenders if only those
who could do so without sacrifice were to volunteer — these
thoughts flashed into my mind, as sunshine sometimes flashes
through a rift in the clouds, and seemed to make the path of
duty plain. I gathered up my books and without so much as
by your leave, to the professor or any one else, I walked out
of the school-room.

In the twinkling of an eye an obedient son, who never
before had dreamed of wilfully disobeying his father's com-
mand, had been transformed into an uncompromising rebel.

Out of doors a cold sleeting rain was falling and the wind
blowing, but what would a soldier amount to who cared for a
driving wind with sleet and rain? To procure a horse and
gallop him over the twelve miles to my father's house was but
an hour of sport.

The family were at supper when I entered dripping with

22 THE SMOKED TANK.

t

water and splashed with mud. "Why, what in the world?"
said mother. " What brought you home through such a
storm?" "Soldiers don't care for storms, mother," I replied
and as I spoke my father looked into my eyes. He saw
that I had crossed the rubicon.

That night we talked it over. I told him that I had re-
solved to be a soldier, and that if he did not give his consent,
so that I could go in the company from our own county, it
would only cause me to find some other place where I could
enlist without any consent. He gave his consent but with
great reluctance.

Boys, I was wrong, but I did not then think so — no argu-
ment or persuasion could at that time have created a doubt in
my mind. " Honor thy father and thy mother and thy days
shall be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee," has a different meaning to me now. I can see now
that if I had remained at school in obedience to my parents'
wishes, although they might have erred in requiring me so to
do, the responsibility would have been theirs, not mine.

"But what became of the girl?" says one of my boys
after listening to this point. So that 's the way the wind blows
already is it ? You would rather have a love story than a war
story would you?

Well, boys, there is n't much to tell in the love story line.
I should n't have mentioned the little there is were it not to let
you see how nearly related love of country, which we call
patriotism, is to all the other noble passions. No boy can
truly love a chaste and modest maiden without having all the
better qualities of his nature quickened and developed. He
no sooner feels the tender passion than he wants to look better
and do better and be better. The fires of ambition are usually

THE SMOKED TANK. 23

kindled by love of woman. One of the most refined and in-
tellectual mothers that I ever knew used often to say that she
never had any anxiety whatever about her boys when they
were in love. She said there was no danger then of their
forming any loaferish or ungentlemanly habits.

If she was right, and I believe she was, I had little oppor-
tunity for bad habits when I was a boy for I was almost
always in love. My affection for Helen began when we were
but children; I was but thirteen and she a half year older in
years, but many years older in manners and in the knowledge
of social etiquette. I was an awkward country jake, she a
village belle, admired by all the village beaux. It was not
her handsome face nor her graceful, slender form, nor her
bright and laughing eyes that took my fancy, but all of these
combined with a daring and venturous disposition. I taught
her to ride on horse-back, to fish, and to shoot, these were the
sports that we both loved best. We ran races, swam our
horses across rivers, shot wild pigeons, and even stole apples
and water melons out of pure devilment, for we had an abun-
dance of them at home. Yet I never went to see her openly
and avowedly as a lover. I was too bashful, too green, per-
haps, for that.

She and my older sister were chums, and I tried hard to
chum with her younger brother. I used often to walk two
miles to town after a hard day's work for no other purpose
than to meet her, if possible, by chance. Have often hid be-
hind a bunch of lilac bushes and thrown gravel stones at her
chamber window, striving thus to catch even a glimpse of her
face. If you should ever visit your grandfather's old home-
stead, go down into the pasture and there beside an old road
you will see an oak tree with twenty-one scars one above the

24 THE SMOKED TANK.

other. Each of them represents a blow of my ax and a word
of a vow made to Helen.

These are pleasant memories. Your Aunt Alice could
perhaps tell you more. After I had enlisted and just before
my company started for the war, she arranged that never-to-
be-forgotten visit that I made to the dear old home with
"another not a sister." Ask your aunt to show you two pic-
tures that she has in one case. One of your father taken
when he was sixteen, the other, taken on the same day, of
"the girl I left behind me."

CHAPTER III.

CAMP WASHBURN 1 GET MY NAME IN PRINT PRIVATES EAT

SANDWICHES IN THE RAIN, WHILE OFFICERS HAVE CHAM-
PAGNE UNDER SHELTER BENTON BARRACKS ON THE

MARCH 1 MAKE A RASH PROMISE.

At the time I enlisted, the company was quartered at
Patch Grove, in Grant county. There we were drilled until
about January ist, 1862, when we joined the remainder of the
regiment at Camp Washburn, in Milwaukee.

That was a hard, cold winter, often referred to as the
winter of the deep snow. The barracks were large board
shanties, filled with two-story bunks for the men to sleep on;
there was an adjoining room to eat in. These shanties were
so open that a laconic English boy was not far wrong when
he said: "The crocks in the domed old barracks are so big
that you could fling a robbit through them anywhere."

The cold quarters, the drills in the snow, and the coarse
food, were the cause of much grumbling. Few of the privates
went through these months at Camp Washburn without hav-
ing their patriotic ardor considerably cooled. Some wrote
complaining letters for publication in the Grant County Herald.
The contrast between these hardships and the comforts and
enjoyments of home was probably as great in my case as in
that of any one in the company, but I did not suffer my ardor
to cool. Had I done so, my father could have said: "I told
you so."

26 THE SMOKED TANK.

I made a good many enemies by writing a letter to the
Herald, in which I claimed that we were faring sumptuously
for soldiers, and that those who grumbled most did not live so
well when at home. That was my first effort at getting into
print, and I came so near being thrashed for it, that I have
never since felt a longing to whack anybody through the
columns of a newspaper.

One day we were marched to the city through a driving
storm for review. When we had splashed around through
slush and mud, and falling rain, and snow, until we had been
viewed and reviewed by some fellows who stood on a covered
porch dressed in broadcloth and brass buttons, silk scarfs and
plumed hats, we were formed in column of fours in front of
the Newhall House, and there we stood in the snow and
rain while the fellows who wore the shoulder straps partook
of champagne and like luxuries, within. A sandwich and a cup
of coffee had been provided for each of us.

Had the officers fared as the men did, all would have been
well. Had there been no storm, it would n't have been so bad.
My ideas about all men being created free and equal, were
badly demoralized on that occasion. For once, I had nothing
to say when others grumbled.

Not one of that crowd of officers became distinguished.
Hundreds of the privates who stood there in line, are now in
everything that goes to make up manhood, head and shoulders
above a large majority of those who then wore the shoulder
straps. The officers who succeeded best in commanding vol-
unteer American soldiers, were those who roughed it with the
men. Who ever heard of Sheridan, or Sherman, or Grant
keeping men in line in a storm, while he feasted in a hotel?

My file leader in the company was Horace C. Carr. He

THE SMOKED TANK. 27

was a man of medium height, black hair and eyes, broad
across the shoulders and thighs, had long arms, and was
knock-kneed. Carr could not learn to keep step. One day
when we were drilling, I kicked his heel to remind him that
he was out of step. He got mad and threatened to box my
ears. I expressed an earnest desire to have him commence at
once. Had n't the least doubt in the world that I could beat
him in a fight. He looked me over in his peculiar, sneering
way, and then said:

" Sonny, did you come away to get weaned ? "

I afterward found out that there were few, if any, men
in the company who could handle Carr, and, notwithstanding
this stormy beginning of our acquaintance, Carr afterward
became as warm a friend to me as any man ever had.

In March, we were transferred to Benton Barracks, near
St. Louis. There we drilled two months more, waiting for
arms and horses. In June, having received arms and horses,
we were transported on boats to Jefferson City, and from there
began our first march, which brought us to Springfield, Mo.
Resting there a few days, we started on what up to that time,
was the longest march or raid of the war. This was the
march of General Curtis from Springfield, to Helena, Ar-
kansas.

At that time, the policy of the Government was to whip
the rebels without hurting their feelings. Nothing in the way
of forage was to be taken without paying for it. We must
pass through the county and leave the growing crops unin-
jured, leave the slaves there to do the work, leave cattle, hogs,
horses, and mules; nothing was to be touched or injured unless
absolutely required for the subsistence of the army, and even
then, vouchers were given. Before starting out on this march,

28 THE SMOKED TANK.

orders were read to the troops in accordance with this gov-
ernment policy. It is needless to say that the private soldiers
had more sense. Whenever they heard of a farm that be-
longed to a rebel in arms, they paid it a visit if they could and
took whatever they wanted in the line of forage and provision.
Some of the officers tried hard at first to enforce the orders
against this foraging. We were commanded to keep in ranks
while marching, formed in line and roll called before camping
and then a chain guard was placed around the camp to keep
us from getting out. My recollection is that I did not during
that march let a day go by without making a raid on my own
hook upon the resources of the enemy. I used to slip out of
the ranks, get what forage I wanted, then keep the regiment
in sight until I saw them halting for camp, when I would slip
back as they were forming for roll-call, as that was always a
time of confusion.

About the third night out, I got back from my raid too
late. The regiment was in camp and guards stationed. I
tried to slip in through the brush, but a guard saw and cap-
tured me. Tried to divide with him and get off, but he was n't
that kind. He took me to Col. Washburn's tent. I had
honey, two hams, some chickens, and some bundles of oats for
my horse. These things were all unloaded into the tent, and
then the colonel read the riot act. I told him I did n't believe
in going hungry or starving my horse, while the rebels, whose
country we were in, had plenty. The colonel admitted that
he was n't in love with the government policy himself, but he
said that he was under orders, and he would obey whether he
liked them or not, and he put it to me whether that was n't
the right thing for every soldier to do. I had to admit that it
was. Then he said that if I would promise to ride in the

THE SMOKED TANK. 29

ranks and obey orders thereafter, he would excuse me this
time. I promised and I was then permitted to go to my
company.

That night when I began to think it over, I regretted
having made such a promise. Would just as soon plough
corn as ride in the ranks in hot weather over dusty roads.
That was one of the hardships of war that I had not counted
on. The next morning I told Captain Woods and Lieutenant
Riley what had occurred, and that I did n't believe I wanted to
be bound by any such agreement. I asked them whether it
would do to go to the colonel and take it back. They thought
that was the best thing for me to do if I did n't mean to keep
the promise; so to the colonel I went. I told him that after
thinking it over, I had concluded to take back the promise I
had made. He was at breakfast, and ham, and chicken, and
honey were on his bill of fare. He looked at me a moment,
and I could see that his frown had to struggle with a smile,
but he managed to look angry as he thundered out: " Go to
your company, sir, I will make an example of you. Your
impudence is worse than your disobedience." A moment
after, our pickets were fired on and we formed in line of battle
where we remained all day expecting attack, and I suppose
the colonel forgot to fulfill his promise to make an example
of me, for I never heard anything more about it.

During this march, I got into a quarrel with a big six-
footer, and was in a fair way to be well pommeled when
Horace Carr interfered. He said to the big fellow : " I aint
very large myself, but I am full grown and used to being
licked; if you are dying for a fight, let the boy alone and
amuse yourself with me." There was no fight, but from that
time on Carr and myself were friends.

(3)

30 THE SMOKED YANK.

During the march, all of the soldiers supposed the objec-
tive point to be Little Rock, and we expected a hard battle
there, for we learned from the negroes as we approached that
place, that great preparations were being made to receive us.
We reached Clarendon, east of Little Rock, without any fight-
ing, except now and then a skirmish with guerrillas. There we
turned to the east, marched rapidly all night, and went into
Helena on the Mississippi. I was one of the advance guard
as we charged into the town. Had we been a few minutes
earlier, we could have captured the rebel general, Pillow. He
was crossing the river on an old flat-boat, and was some dis-
tance from the farther shore when we rode up to the bank of
the'river.

CHAPTER IV.

HELENA A SLAVE-OWNER IN A BAD FIX " FORNINST THE

GOVERNMENT" — PLANTATION RECORDS — MEMPHIS, PRO-
HIBITION IN THE ARMY — HELPING A FRIEND TO BEAT
THE QUARTERMASTER.

We remained at Helena from early in July until late in
January. The country back of the town to the North is high
and perhaps healthy. South, East, and West are the low
bottom lands full of swamps and bayous. The town is on low
ground protected by a levee from over-flow. It is, or was
then, a sickly hole. Fever and ague and other diseases
which make short work of a northern man who goes there in
July, carried off at least ten per cent, of our regiment.

Helena is in the cotton belt. There were thousands of
negroes on the cotton plantations. The government was at
that time trying to save the Union and slavery too. The
negroes came into Helena by hundreds. Their masters would
follow them in and get permits to take them back. The
privates, many of us were not in accord with the Government
on the negro question. We used to follow the masters when
they started away with their slaves, release the slaves and con-
vince the masters that it would be best to keep away from
camp.

On one occasion, Carr and I saw a man leave town with
a lot of his negroes who had run away. We followed him

32 THE SMOKED TANK.

out about ten miles and then stopped him. We sent the
negroes back to town, took the master's horse, and told him
to stay out of Helena. Carr asked me to ride back with the
negroes, as they were afraid other slave-owners would arrest
them, while he would conceal himself and see if the enraged
master would attempt to follow us into camp.

Before I got back to town, Carr overtook me leading another
captured horse. He absolutely refused to answer any ques-
tions, and, fearing that the man had started to follow us back,
and that Carr had killed him, I was willing that silence should
be maintained. A few weeks after, I saw this slave-owner in
town. He was n't trying to take out negroes any more. I
pointed him out to Carr, who then told me what had happened
before. He saw the man coming on a horse, waylaid him,
took him into the woods and handcuffed his hands around a
a tall tree and left him there. Carr had found the handcuffs
on a plantation where they had been used in disciplining
negroes, and he carried them in his saddle-bags as a curiosity ;
said he left the man near the traveled road so that there would
be no question about his being released.

All that summer we carried on a warfare of that kind
against what we believed to be the mistaken policy of the
government. It had a bad effect on the soldiers. They got
to be like Irishmen when they land in New York, " forninst
the government." The government tried to protect rebels in
their property. The soldier said, " a rebel's property belongs
to the government, but if the government wont have it, I
will," especially a soldier who was kept where there was no
fighting to do.

After a while the boys ceased to make any distinction
between captured and other government property. I remem-

THE SMOKED TANK. 33

her that a boat load of Irish potatoes was unloaded on the
wharf at Helena; they were scarce down there, and in great
demand. An infantry soldier was on guard over them. We
wanted some of those potatoes. That night we borrowed
some muskets from infantry men, obtained the countersign,
and when the guard at the pile of potatoes had been on duty
until his two hours were nearly up, we marched up with a
pretended relief guard and relieved him. He went to camp
and we carried off potatoes.

Of course, that was wrong, but such acts were frequently
committed, without conscientious scruples, by honest men, be-
cause they had lost respect for the government, on account of
the policy that was being pursued. It seemed to us that the
government gave more thought and care to the protection of
the property and rights of rebels than to the safety and com-
fort of men who had enlisted to fight for the Union.

While at Helena I was taken with chills and fever. An
overseer on one of General Pillow's plantations, offered to
take me to his house and cure me. I went with him. There
had been nearly two hundred negroes on that plantation; not
one was left. The government didn't go quite so far as to
return runaway negroes to a rebel general and keep them at
work. That man and his wife had two sons. They were
both in the rebel army. One had been wounded and was
taken prisoner. They nursed and doctored me with as much
care as they could have bestowed on one of their own boys.
It gave them a feeling of security to have a Union soldier in
their house.

On that plantation I used to read the records kept by
the overseer. It seems that every overseer of a large plan-
tation kept a daily record. That record showed that there

34

THE SMOKED TANK.

were negroes whipped, bucked, and gagged, and otherwise
punished every day. Every negro who came from the field
with less than his stint of cotton, received so many lashes. I
saw there the same kind of instruments of torture that I after-
ward saw in Andersonville. One machine was rigged for
stretching negroes over a large roller, so that the lash could
be applied to the bare skin. If anyone believes that the cruel-
ties practiced on slaves were exaggerated in Uncle Tom's
Cabin, let him hunt up and read one of those plantation records.

Except a few unimportant raids and a little scouting, we
might as well have been infantry men during all these months
at Helena. About February ist, we were transported on
boats up to Memphis. I rode from the steamboat out to the
camp ground in a storm of sleet and snow; and before tents
were pitched for shelter, was wet and nearly frozen. Caught
a bad cold which terminated in pneumonia; was taken to the
hospital. The doctors said my health had been so badly
broken by fever and ague that it would be impossible for me
to survive this attack of pneumonia. Their conclusion was
telegraphed to my parents.

Carr helped to carry me to the hospital and never left
me until I was out of danger. One night when I had been
unconscious for twenty-four hours, it seemed that I was awak-
ened from sleep by some one rubbing my feet. I could see
and hear, but could not move or speak. The doctor, the
steward, and Carr were close to me, and the doctor said to
the others that I would be gone before morning. When the
others went away, I managed to make Carr understand that I
was conscious and hungry. He fed me; I told him I was go-
ing to fool that doctor, and then went to sleep. In the morn-
ing, I woke up out of danger; was able to walk when my

THE SMOKED TANK. 35

mother got there. She took me to a private boarding-house
and staid with me until I was entirely well.

Soldier life at Memphis was very nearly a repetition of
that at Helena. Our camp was surrounded by a chain of
guards and we were not permitted to go away from camp
without a pass.

Our adventures were chiefly of the disorderly kind. How
to get out of camp, take in the city, and then get back without
being arrested, was the question. I went to the city three
times as often as I would have gone had there been no camp
guard to prevent. The selling of liquor to soldiers at the
saloons, or by anyone, was forbidden. Before that order was
issued, I seldom thought of drinking anything. After the
order was issued, I never went into the city without finding a
place where the order could be evaded. Such rules and
orders have that effect on most young men. When we were
at Helena, rations of whisky were issued to us, and half of
the soldiers would n't touch it. Most all of them who refused
whisky at Helena, drank every time they could get anything
to drink at Memphis.

The regiment went out on one raid before I was able to
ride. Carr brought back a captured horse. He bought it
from another man who captured it. The men who captured
horses and mules always sold them if they could. The regi-
mental quartermaster always confiscated all such property if
he could. Between him and the soldiers, there was continual
strife. Carr expected to get out of the ranks with his pur-
chase before getting back to camp, but he was so closely
watched, that he could not. Early the next morning, the
quartermaster was around taking a list of captured property,
and of course, he put down Carr's horse. He had a particu-

36 THE SMOKED TANK.

lar grudge against myself and Carr because we had so often
outwitted him.

I was at that time permitted to ride where I pleased, be-
cause I had not yet been reported fit for duty. The horses
were all taken every morning and evening through the city to
the river to water. Each man rode one horse and led another.
An officer went in charge of each company, and he had to
bring back as many men and horses as he took out. The officer
of the guard counted them out and in. Carr led his purchase
out at watering call. I desired to help him if possible, so I
rode out afterward and overtook the watering party. I
told Carr to get in the rear coming back from the river. I
took the saddle off from my horse and left it at a stable; got
on bareback. Watching for a chance when the column re-
turning from the river turned a corner in the city, and the
officer in charge could not see the rear of his company, I rode
my horse quickly in between the one Carr rode and the one
he led, slipped from my horse on to the other, and Carr took
my horse back to camp. That made the count all correct. I
left Carr's horse at a stable, got into a hack and was driven
to the camp, and was in Captain Woods' tent when the men
and horses returned.

The quartermaster soon came in swearing mad, and re-
quired Captain Woods to produce the captured horse. The
captain was not friendly to Carr, and he entered with great
zeal into the search for the missing horse. The officer that
had been to the river declared that Carr brought back the
horse he took to water. Some of the boys knew better, but
they would n't give us away. That let Carr out. Then the
quartermaster accused me on general principles. The captain
declared that I was writing in his tent when the men came

THE SMOKED TANK. 37

back with the horses, and he knew I didn't have anything to
do with it. Then he said to the quartermaster : " That horse
was hitched to the picket-rope this morning when you listed
him, and if you have let some one take him away in broad
daylight, do n't you blame me for it."

I always made out the pay-rolls for the company, and had
been at work on them that morning in the captain's tent. I
went back to work; the captain came in. He looked at me
awhile, and then said : " Melvin, how did you manage to get
that horse out of camp ?" I told him all about it; never at-
tempted to conceal anything from either Captain Woods or
Lieutenant Riley, and neither of them would catch me doing
anything wrong if he could possibly avoid it. Carr sold his
horse so as to clear $40.

CHAPTER V.

VICKSBURG ANOTHER CASE OF BEATING U. S. A RUNAWAY

HORSE CARRIES ME INTO CLOSE QUARTERS JACKSON AND

CANTON HAVE TROUBLE WITH UNCLE TOMMY AND

LEAVE THE REGIMENT.

In May we were transported in boats down to Vicksburg
and up the Yazoo river to Hams' Bluff. There we went into
camp to help watch Johnson who was waiting for a chance to
raise the siege. We had something to do there, raiding, and
scouting parties out every day. Once we crossed the Yazoo,
and made a raid into the Running Water country. We cap-
tured a large herd of cattle and some prisoners and horses. I
captured a fine young mare. An officer of the *jth Kansas
cavalry offered to give me $60 if I would bring the mare to
his camp without letting her get branded. When the quarter-
master once got his U. S. brand on a horse's shoulder, no one
would buy.

When we got to the river on our return, the brigade
quartermaster was there to take charge of all the captured
property. He stood on the steam ferry-boat as the horses
were loaded for crossing, and permitted no horse to go on
board without the U. S. brand. 1 took in the situation while
another regiment was being ferried. Then I chewed the end
of a stick into a brush, got some tar from the hub of an old-
fashioned wagon, and made U. S. with tar on my captured

THE SMOKED TANK. 39

horse ; worked the tar well into the hair, then rubbed it off
with sand until I had a fine brand. I had to tell my captain
what I was up to, as each captain was required to stand at the
gang-plank to assist the quartermaster as his company went
on board. I took my horse on first, and then went back and
brought up the rear with my captured mare. The captain
managed to move away as I led the mare up the plank, and
the " U. S." was so plain that no questions were asked.

When our regiment was alone or at the head of the
column during a raid, my company was in advance of the regi-
ment. A boy named Lynn Cook, and myself, nearly always
rode as videttes or scouts, in advance of the advance guard.
I do n't remember how it came about, but this place was al-
ways accorded to Cook and myself, probably because we had
keen eyes and good horses, and never failed to discover the
enemy.

We had skirmishes with Johnson's cavalry almost every
day. One day the patrol guard went out, under Lieutenant
Showalter — twelve or fifteen men, Cook and myself being ad-
vance guards. We saw three rebels coming toward us. We
supposed them to be the advance, as they were, of a larger
party. Without having been seen, we rode back and reported,
and asked the lieutenant to let us hide in a fence corner and
capture the Johnnies. He would not, but formed us in line on
the side of the road where the rebels couldn't possibly get
nearer than one hundred yards without seeing us.

They came riding carelessly along, one of them sitting
sideways on his horse. We were all ready, and when they
caught sight of us the lieutenant said, "fire." Not a man was
touched, but as they wheeled to run, the one sitting sideways
was knocked off and captured.

4o THE SMOKED TANK.

I was riding a little race horse that had been captured at
Fort Pillow. He had both speed and endurance, but he
wouldn't stand fire. On this occasion, as soon as the volley
was fired, he bolted with me and dashed after the two rebels
that were running away. They had a hundred yards the
start, but in less than a quarter of a mile I was within a few
rods of them. I had been trying all the time to stop my
horse, and only managed to pull him up when about to run
into a whole company of rebels that came dashing up the road
to support their advance. Had the two Johnnies who sup-
posed I was chasing them, not been in the way, I should cer-
tainly have been shot by the others. My horse once turned,
carried me swiftly back, nor did I try to hold him.

Immediately after the surrender of Vicksburg we crossed
the Big Black river, and started in pursuit of Johnson's army.
I never could understand why Sherman did not crush Johnson
at Jackson. I was detailed as an orderly for General Parkes,
who commanded the pth corps. The pth corps was on
the left. There was some fighting. I rode back and forth
along our lines every day carrying messages, and could
see that the rebels were withdrawing, leaving only a skirmish
line behind their breast-works. In company with a man from
the signal corps, I went on top of the insane asylum with Gen.
Parkes' field glass, and reported to him what was going on.
The rebels saw us and fired at us with cannon, regardless of
consequences to the insane. Then I climbed a tall tree from
which I could see the movements of the enemy. They were
evacuating the city all day, and I never could understand why
when one half had crossed the river, the other was not
gobbled up.

The day after Jackson was taken, our regiment went on

THE SMOKED TANK. 4!

a raid to Canton. Some rebels came out to meet us. They
formed in line in the edge of some woods, and we formed in
a field just out of reach of them, and there we waited until
they moved away. Why we didn't have a fight there, I
never could see.

We camped that night at a little place called Vernon. In

an abandoned house I found a trunk addressed to Captain

of a rebel regiment; broke it open, and among other things
that were evidently intended for a soldier in camp, there was a
pair of fine woolen blankets and a little bag of silver. These
I took. I presented the blankets to our colonel, Stevens, and
kept the silver, four or five dollars.

A few days after that, Uncle Tommy, as the boys called
the colonel, got on his ear because so many of us left the ranks
to forage. Had he kept us where there was fighting to do,
he would have had no trouble, but fighting wasn't in his line,
and we all knew it. I had been scouting on my own hook
one day, and, on coming to camp, found a camp-guard out.
Not expecting anything of the kind, I was captured and taken
before Colonel Stevens. He was in a great rage. Had my
forage, of which I had a load, taken from me, and ordered me
to get off my horse and be searched. I told him I had not
taken anything but forage, and was not in the habit of taking
anything else. Adjutant Scott asked to see what I had in my
pockets. As the colonel, who was a rank Englishman, saw
the silver, he fairly frothed at the mouth.

"Where did 'e get that?"

" In a house at Vernon," I replied.

" Been a burnin' 'ouses 'ave 'e, been a robbin' of people
and burnin' 'ouses, 'ave 'e? I'll teach 'e to break horders and

42 THE SMOKED TANK.

burn 'ouses, so I will. Hadjutant, send this man to his com-
pany under harrest."

I tried to explain but he ordered me off. Lieutenant
Riley saw Adjutant Scott next morning, and together they
pacified the colonel. Nothing further would have been said
or done had I been content to let the matter rest. The colonel
called me hard names, had taken money from me that he had
no better right to than I had, and, as I did not have much re-
spect for him anyway, the more I thought of it the more I
thought I had been mis-used.

Examining the army regulations, I found that valuables
taken from the enemy should be turned over to the hospital
department. From Adjutant Scott I learned that the colonel
had kept my silver and made no report of it. After talking
the matter over with Captain Woods, who was then acting as
major, I concluded to ask the colonel for the silver. So one
day when we had halted for a noon-day rest, I walked up to the
colonel, who was lying in the shade surrounded by other offi-
cers, and asked him to return the silver that he had taken from
me. He reached for his sabre, jumped up and made for me
as though he meant to run me through on the spot. Captain
Woods and the other officers stopped him and reminded him
that he had no right to use his sabre on a soldier for asking a
question.

A few weeks after this, we were in camp near Vicksburg
and orders came from Washington to grant furloughs for
meritorious conduct to two soldiers in each company. My
conduct had not been in all respects meritorious, but I had, on
several occasions, volunteered for hazardous service, and had
never been known to shirk when there was dangerous work
to do. I was one of the two recommended by the officers of

THE SMOKED TANK

4o

my company for furlough. Had never had or asked for a
furlough, and now to get one for meritorious conduct, and
visit my home in the North during the hot, sickly weather
when the army would be idle, nothing could have pleased me
more.

Imagine my feelings when the recommendation came
back disapproved by Colonel Stevens. I went with Captain
Woods to see him. We had a stormy interview. The colonel
said I deserved a court-martial rather than a furlough. The
captain then demanded a court-martial.

I was subsequently tried before a court-martial on
charges preferred by Colonel Stevens. The trial was in the
colonel's tent. I did not hear the evidence submitted against
me, but I was called in and asked to explain how and where I
obtained the silver, and why I asked the colonel to return it
to me. I sat on a cot in the colonel's tent, and turning up the
blankets, noticed the very same white blankets that I took
from the trunk in which I found the silver. When I had told
where I got the silver, I said :

" Gentlemen, I took a pair of white wool blankets from
the same trunk and presented them to Colonel Stevens. He
thanked me with great kindness and made no inquries as to
where I got them. I think these are the same blankets."

I uncovered a pair of white blankets on the cot. The
officers of the court smiled; the colonel got red in the face and
tried to explain, but about all that he could say was that he
did not know that I was the boy that gave him the blankets.
As I never heard anything more from the court-martial, I
suppose that the charges were not sustained.

I liked my companions in the company and never had any
trouble whatever with my company officers, but, knowing that

44 THE SMOKED TANK.

the colonel was watching for a chance to get me into trouble,
and fearing that he might, I obtained through Captain Woods
an order from the division commander, placing me on detached
service, and assigning me for duty at the division headquarters
in Vicksburg. There I was an orderly for two or three
months and was then made chief of orderlies. t

The duties of an orderly in an army that is in actual ser-
vice, are about the same as those of a page in congress. The
orderlies usually know everything and see everything that is
going on. If they please the officers under whom they work,
they are well treated, if they do not they are sent to their
regiment.

My duties at the division headquarters, especially after I
was promoted to chief of orderlies, were light and pleasant.
I would in all probability have remained on detached service
until the term for which I enlisted expired, had I not met with
the misfortune hereafter related.

CHAPTER VI.

I GET LEAVE OF ABSENCE AND HAVE SOME FUN WITH THE

BOYS— HELPING PLANTERS TO MARKET COTTON "AN

ATHEIST'S LAUGH A POOR EXCHANGE FOR DEITY OFFEND-
ED" CAPTURED BY GUERILLAS.

In February, 1864, my regiment was in camp at Redbone
Church, twelve miles south of Vicksburg, Major Harry East-
man, in command. The weather was delightful, the regiment
in good health and fine spirits. Dashing Harry, as the major
was sometimes called, and nearly all of his officers and men,
were reported to be coining money in the cotton business.
Every man that I saw in the regiment reported " jolly good
times in camp."

There was not much to do at division headquarters.
General McArthur and most of the men in the division were
out on the Meridian campaign. I obtained from the adjutant
general, a leave of absence for ten days, and went out to camp
to have some fun with the boys.

The cotton camp was on the Black River, several miles
from the main camp at Redbone. From this camp a raiding
party was sent out nearly every day, avowedly for the pur-
pose of hunting Whittaker's scouts, a band of guerillas that
infested the region, but really for the purpose of protecting
teams that followed after to bring in cotton. The first morn-
ing after I arrived at the cotton camp, a raiding party one hun-

46 THE SMOKED YANK.

dred strong, started out under Dashing Harry himself. I went
along, and being a visitor and not obliged to keep in the ranks,
I soon discovered the object of the raid. At every plantation
the major would have a private interview with the planter
and then march on. As soon as the command was fairly out
of sight, that planter would have all the hands on the place
hitching up teams and loading on cotton. We started at an
early hour; about noon we reached Port Gibson, and went
in on a charge, scaring the people out of their wits, and
causing the few daring rebels that were there to see the girls
they had left behind them, to leave with short allowance.
Here I enlisted four of the boys whom I considered of good
grit, into a scheme to gobble a team and load of cotton. Our
plan was to slip out when the command was about ready to
start, remain in town until the rest were out of sight then
secure a team, load it with cotton and follow the command
into camp. All went well until the troops began to disappear
over the hill, then five of us seemed a small number to hold
the town, and before the rear guard had disappeared over the
hill, three of my boys deserted, leaving two of us in Port
Gibson. Night was coming on by the time we were fairly
out of town with our four mule team and negro driver. At
one of the plantations where I had seen the major interview
the planter, we halted and ordered him to load that team with
cotton as soon as possible. He asked who I wanted the
cotton for. I told him for Major Eastman. He had that team
loaded in less than a jiffy. We left the plantation at dark ; I
rode ahead of the team and my companion brought up the
rear. Our road lay over a hilly country, part of the way
through timber. It was twenty-five miles to camp; the dark-
ness intense. Reader, try such a ride on such a night in a

THE SMOKED TANK. 47

guerilla region, and if you don't wish for the end of your
journey before you find it, your experience will not be what
mine was. At daybreak we unloaded four bales among other
bales of cotton on the bank of the Black River, reported the
fact to an officer, and in a few days afterwards, Charley Camp-
bell and I received $90 each for our share of that night's
work. I afterward saw the planter in Major Eastman's tent,
but how they settled for the four bales of cotton, I never in-
quired. Such incidents were the every-day occurrences of the
cotton camp.

A few days after this, Lieutenant D. L. Riley, with a
detachment of men was sent further up the river to guard a
ford, and also to keep the guerillas in that vicinity from molest-
ing the planters as they hauled their cotton to market at
Vicksburg.

After establishing his camp at the ford, the lieutenant rode
into Redbone. He told me that he had learned from a negro
that there was a large quantity of C. S. A. cotton (cotton pur-
chased by the confederate government and branded C. S. A.)
concealed in a swamp six or seven miles above his camp at
the ford. I returned with Riley and found Lieutenant Sho-
walter and the men very much excited. During the night,
a large band of guerillas had charged up to the opposite bank
of the river and fired on them — but as the boys were all
sleeping behind bales of cotton, none was hurt. That day
we scouted in all directions but could hear nothing of the
guerillas, though we saw a number of men that looked as
though they might do good service. As each one had a sur-
geon's certificate exempting him from conscription, and also
professed loyalty to the Union, we passed them by. There
was one, however, a fine looking man of thirty or thereabouts,

48 THE SMOKED YANK.

that particularly excited the lieutenant's suspicion. He not
only showed a surgeon's certificate but also a pass and a letter
from the post commander at Vicksburg. I think his name
was Warner.

The next morning in company with Sergeant E. Wise-
man, Lynn B. Cook, H. C. Carr, James Shanley, George
Cornish, Patrick Woods, and James Johnson, I crossed the
river intending to make a circuit through the country, and
come to the river at the swamp above where the C. S. A.
cotton was reported to be. It was our intention to make a
raft of the cotton and float it down the river to camp. We
started before daybreak; I was riding ahead and out of sight
of the rest of the party, when I came in sight of the plantation,
owned by the fine-looking, suspicious gentleman before men-
tioned, just in time to see him dismount at his gate and lead his
horse toward the house. I put spurs to the mule that I was
riding, and when I reached the house the man had unsaddled
the horse, a fine looking animal, and was holding him by the
bridle. I rode up, revolver in hand, and asked him where he
had been so early in the morning. He replied that a lady in
the house had been taken sick in the night and he had been
to see a physician. I told him that I had been compelled to
ride a mule because my horse was sick, and that I would be
obliged to take his horse; but that if he would come to camp
that night, he might have his horse back if the lieutenant was
willing. He made some remonstrances and spoke of a letter
of protection from some Union officer. I dismounted with
the intention of putting my saddle on the horse, but just then
a lady stepped on the porch, and the man gave her the bridle
saying :

"If you take this horse, you must take it from the owner."

THE SMOKED TANK. 49

She said : " You Yankees have taken everything I had
in the world except this horse, and if you get this, you will
have to take it from me by force ! "

I supposed the lady to be the wife of the man. Both had
an air of gentility and used the language of culture. My ideas
of chivalry did not admit of my taking a horse from a lady by
force, and so I vented my spleen on the man in threats and
insulting language, mounted my mule and rode away. We
arrived at Hankinson's ferry, just below the cotton, about nine
o'clock. Four of the party went to see if the cotton was all
right and four of us remained at the house to have breakfast
prepared for all. The inmates of the house were the ferry-
man, his wife, and an old negress. The house, itself, was
one of the double log houses common in the South, the two
parts of the house being separated, the space between called
the " passage," having floor and roof but no side walls. The
house fronted the river; the road leading from it, ran up the
river.

The old auntie prepared the breakfast and called us in.
We sat down to the table. One of our number was a hand-
some young man, then about 23 years of age. At his coun-
try home, he had been the pet and pride of the family; a
leader among the young folks of his neighborhood. He was
active, witty, and clever. In our company, he had been from
the first a kind of clown or fun-maker. Sometimes he would
play drunk, get arrested, and carried struggling and kicking,
before some officer, where to the chagrin of his captors, he
would stand up sober as a judge. His favorite role was that
of a camp-meeting preacher. His parents were Methodists,
and his store of the words and phrases peculiar to camp-meet-
ing and revival sermons, was indeed wonderful. Mounted on

5o THE SMOKED TANK.

a box, barrel, or stump, he would go through an entire camp-
meeting service, song, sermon, prayer and all, and so perfect-
ly could he act his part, that strangers were often astonished
to learn that he was merely in jest.

On this occasion, we were no sooner seated around the
table, than this young man assuming perfect gravity of man-
ner, bowed his head and pretended to invoke the Divine
Blessing. The old auntie opened wide her eyes with astonish-
ment, and at the conclusion, " Thank God," she said, " de
Yankees am not all sinnas."

Poor boy! How little he thought that he was never
again to take a seat at a well-spread table, and that the mem-
ory of that blessing, asked in mockery, would haunt him to
his grave. It did haunt him to his dying hour and he died of
hunger. Often, afterward, half-naked, cold and sick, and
nearly famished for food, as he took his poor ration of bread,
the memory of that thoughtless mimicry would come over
him and the tears of bitter remorse would chase each other
down his bony cheeks. Boys, if you are ever tempted to
scoff at sacred things, let this poor boy's fate be a warning.
His thoughtless act was not the cause of his early death, but,
done as it was, an instant before an unexpected crisis, it made
a deep and lasting impression, and none can say what his
future might have been but for the influence of that guilty
feeling on his mind. No man knows what an hour, even a
moment, may bring forth. Remember this from Burns:

The great Creator to revere,

Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,

And ev'n the rigid feature;
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range

Be complaisance extended;
An atheist's laugh's a poor exchange

For Deity offended.

THE SMOKED TANK. 51

When ranting round in pleasure's ring

Religion may be blinded;
Or if she gie a random sting,

It may be little minded;
But when in life we're tempest driv'n,

A conscience but a canker, —
A correspondence fixed with Heaven

Is sure a noble anchor.

We had just commenced to eat, when some dogs
began barking around the house. Sergeant Wiseman went
out and came in directly, saying there was a man on the
other side of the river calling for the ferry, and that he would
stay out and stand guard until the rest of us had finished our
breakfast. I was just rising from the table, when there
burst upon our ears the unearthly hip, hip, hip, of the rebel
yell. I leaped into the passage to grab a gun, and whiz,
whiz, whiz, the bullets flew all around me. I thought of the
corn-field, and looked that way; a line of rebels was within a
hundred yards. Turning toward the gate, the muzzles of
a half dozen cocked guns were leveled at me. Instantly and
almost instinctively my hands went up in token of surrender,
and I hastened toward the men in front, to escape being shot
by those behind.

As before stated, I had been acting as chief of orderlies
at division headquarters, and was, therefore, in better dress
than private soldiers usually were. My only weapon was an
elegant silver mounted self-cocking revolver, fastened around
me by a morocco belt, such as officers usually wore. I had,
being so ordered in no gentle words, unbuckled this belt and
was handing it with revolver attached, up to the man nearest
me who sat on his horse, when I saw coming toward me, his
face pale with rage and shot-gun in hand, the man, Warner,
riding the very same horse that his sister had kept me from
taking a few hours before. It was well that I saw him and

5a THE SMOKED TANK.

that my presence of mind did not forsake me. I knew from
the expression on his face and his actions as well, that he was
ready to shoot me, but could not, where I stood without dan-
ger to the man to whom I was handing the belt.

As the man took the belt and revolver, I saw that he was
pleased with it. Such weapons were highly prized by the
rebels, and I quickly handed up my watch and pocketbook,
and said as I did so:

" Am I your prisoner?"

" Well, I reckon. How big are them boots ?" he said.

" You can have the boots, but do n't let that man shoot
me," I quickly responded.

Looking at Warner, Boatwright, for that was my cap-
tor's name, said:

" What in hell are you pointing your gun at this Yank,
for? He is my prisoner."

"I don't care a damn, whose prisoner he is, I am going
to shoot him," said Warner.

It seemed that these men were not personally acquainted,
for Boatwright's reply was something like this:

" I reckon you don't know me, by G — d, I'm Boatwright,
the independent scout, that's who I am; and when any man
shoots my prisoner, he had better shoot me first."

More words followed back and forth, until finally Boat-
wright moved his horse away from me, and with cocked re-
volver in hand, said to Warner:

" You are going to kill that unarmed boy, are you? Now
you just blaze away!"

Warner knew what that flashing eye and defiant manner
meant, and, completely cowed, he turned his horse and rode
away. Is it any wonder that I remember almost every act

THE SMOKED TANK. 53

and word of those two men during those few brief moments,
or any wonder that I remember nothing else of what was
going on around? I had watched and listened to that quarrel
fully realizing that my life was wavering in the balance.
Warner, because, perhaps, he was not cool enough in such an
emergency to invent a story better suited to his purpose, had
related our morning encounter about as it was. I admitted
what he said, and claimed that he had not sufficient provoca-
tion to justify his shooting me, and so Boatwright thought.
Warner's real reason for wanting to put me out of the way,
was, no doubt, because he knew I had seen his surgeon's cer-
tificate, and his permit to go and come through the Union
lines, and now here he was in arms with rebels, and therefore
liable to be shot as a spy should he be caught and tried. But
these things came up and were talked over later in the
day. No more was said up to the time Warner rode away,
than I before stated, and not until he had gone, did I feel the
terrible strain. Then I weakened, my knees knocked together
as though an ague chill was on me, and I had to sit down to
keep from falling.

Meantime, while these things that I remember so
well were transpiring, the rest of the boys were being cap-
tured, and the plunder, consisting of horses, guns, revolvers,
watches, money, and whatever they had worth taking, was
being divided between twenty-five or thirty guerillas, in whose
hands we now were. Excepting Boatwright, and one or two
others who claimed to be independent scouts, they belonged
to Whittaker's scouts.

But all this time, where is Sergeant Wiseman, who went
out to stand guard? Some of the guerillas said they fired at
a man crawling up the bank on the other side of the river.

54 THE SMOKED TANK.

Those of us who were taken, supposed that he saw the gue-
rillas approaching, and without giving us any alarm, sought
his own safety in flight. I have never heard his account of
the affair and can, therefore, only hope that we were wrong.

CHAPTER VII.

SAMPLES OF CHIVALRY JOKING WITH A JOHNNY HELPING

TO FILL UP THE SETS A WEARISOME MARCH WITHOUT

FOOD, EXCEPT FOR REFLECTION TOO ANGRY TO EAT.

Just after Warner rode away, and while the remainder of
our captors were arranging to follow, we were all startled by
the report of a gun from the other side of the river and the
whistling of a bullet directly over our heads. Looking in the
direction from which the sound came, we saw James Trelore,
one of our company, taking his carbine from his shoulder, as
he did so, he wheeled his horse and galloped away. Several
shots were fired at him by our guardians, none of which took
effect.

It seems that he had been sent up to see how we were
getting along, and that he had arrived on the other side of the
river just in time to see us in the hands of our new friends.
Trelore was a good shot, and I have always supposed that he
did not aim closely at any of the rebels for fear of hitting us,
but merely fired over their heads with a view of frightening
them away. They did not frighten, and he came near paying
dearly for his audacity.

Of the twenty-five or thirty guerillas that surrounded us
in the first place, only five or six remained after our capture
was made, the rest galloped away on the trail of the other
four of our party. They came upon them in the woods and a

56 THE SMOKED TANK.

sharp skirmish ensued, resulting in the wounding of Carr in
the thigh by a buckshot and the killing of one of the guerilla
horses. The guerillas, after exchanging a few shots at long
range and finding that there were only four, charged on them
with the usual rebel yell. Carr, too brave for his own good,
took deliberate aim at short range and would have killed his
man had not the horse's head, suddenly raised, received the
bullet. Before he could re-charge his carbine, a dozen men
were around him. Bringing their prisoners together, the
guerillas rode away with us rapidly until about the middle of
the afternoon, when we came to the rendezvous, where we
found Captain Whittaker and the rest of his band.

Here Warner demanded of the captain that I be delivered
over to him as his prisoner to be dealt with as he might see
fit, at the same time stating his reasons for the demand.
Boatwright spoke up boldly and charged that Warner had
been afraid to show his colors in the morning when I had met
him single-handed, and that he now wanted to take me off and
murder me after I had been made a prisoner by others. He
intimated very strongly, too, that he had promised me his pro-
tection, and that it would n't be safe for Warner or any one
else to harm a hair of my head.

The quarrel between the two men again waxed warm,
and it transpired that Warner's real reason for wanting to put
me out of the way was not so much what I had said and done
that morning as the fact that I had seen his pass from a Union
officer, and could, should I escape, or in any other way get
back into the Union army, and cause his capture, furnish evi-
dence to convict him as a spy. Whittaker listened awhile and
then decided in this way:

" Young man," he said to me, " I do n't think you have

THE SMOKED TANK. 57

done anything very much out of the way, but unless you will
take an oath that you will never, under any circumstances,
seek revenge on Warner, or try to do him harm, I shall turn
you over to him to do with as he sees fit."

I saw no other way out, but I think I made some mental
reservations as I held up my hand and took that oath. If my
memory serves me right, all of my fellow prisoners were re-
quired to take the same oath.

Even then, Warner was not satisfied. He asked to be
one of the number detailed to guard us. To this, Boatwright
vigorously objected, and volunteered to be one of our guards,
himself, for the purpose, as he plainly stated, of seeing that
Warner did not play the sneak and get a shot at an unarmed
foe.

Boatwright was certainly a generous and brave man. He
told us some wonderful stories of his exploits as a scout and
guerilla, some of which if true, were not to his credit, but
his whole conduct while with us, indicated, that though rough
in appearance and coarse in language, he had anything but a
mean spirit.

If I remember correctly, there were seven guards in all,
under command of Boatwright, who started with us for the
headquarters of the rebel general in command of that district.
The first night we camped where there were two log cabins.
We were put into one, the guards took the other. Two at a
time stood guard at our door.

Carr and I arranged a plan for our escape. We pro-
posed that when all the guards but the two were asleep, we
would suddenly spring on these two, get their guns and cap-
ture the rest before they could be aroused, and then by travel-
ing in the night only, and through the woods, go with the

58 THE SMOKED TANK.

prisoners to our own lines. It was a feasible plan, and at first,
all agreed to it. But as the time for action approached, two
or three of the boys became faint-hearted and declared it
should not be done. So they shut the door and laid down in
front of it, threatening that they would cry out and alarm the
guard, should any of us attempt to open the door.

Thus securely guarded both by friends and foes, I spent
my first night as a prisoner. The boys that refused to join
in the break for liberty were probably right. They said they
were afraid it could not be done without killing some of the
guards, and that whether any of them were hurt or not, we
could not take so large a party back to our lines without dis-
covery and re-capture, and that if we tried and failed, we
would all be shot.

The second night we came to the camp of a rebel brig-
ade— these were regular rebel soldiers — they treated us well.
Gave us a tent to sleep in, plenty to eat, and two of us, Cook
and myself, and two of the Johnnies, as we called them, en-
gaged in a friendly game of draw-poker during the greater
part of the night. Neither Cook nor myself had any money,
but some of the Johnnies, just to see the fun of the game
between two Yanks and two Johnnies, furnished us with funds.
We came out ahead, and our backers generously divided with
us our winnings.

Here we were placed under charge of new guards, the
old ones, except Boatwright, going back. We traveled to
Morrisville that day and there waited for a train. By this
time, the wound received by Carr had become inflamed and
made him sick. Boatwright took him to a physician who ex-
amined the wound and said the bullet must be extracted, but
before he would do it, he wanted to know where he was to

THE SMOKED YANK. 59

get his pay. Carr told him that he was a prisoner and had
no money. Still the physician refused to perform the op-
eration without pay. I mention this as an example of the
boasted southern chivalry. Finally, Cook and myself pro-
duced the money won in the poker game, and gave it to the
man, who then performed the operation and dressed the wound
quite skilfully.

We witnessed another illustration of southern chivalry at
the same town. We were guarded in a negro quarter or
hut. Our supper was brought in by a good-looking mulatto
girl. The owner of the place, the girl's master, came in while
we were eating, and seemed desirous of arguing with us the
questions that divided the North and South.

" You uns," said he, " think a nigger just as good as a
white man, do n't you?"

" Yes, in some respects," we said.

" Now, I suppose you would just as soon marry a nigger
wench as to marry a white woman, wouldn't you?"

Thinking the old gentleman would take a joke, I said
to him:

*« I would n't like to marry any nigger wench that I have
seen around here, for fear I would have some of you rebels
for a daddy-in-law."

As I spoke, I looked from him to the mulatto girl,
standing near. Whoopee! How the old man did rave! He
stormed and swore and finally started for the house saying,
he wouldn't stand such an insult from no damned Yankee.
He meant business, too, for he soon came back with a shot
gun, which he would doubtless have fired into us, had not
Boatwright stood in the door, and, partly by the influence of
his drawn revolver and partly by persuasion, appeased the old

60 THE SMOKED TANK.

man's wrath. I was always careful after that about joking
with Johnnies.

From this place, we were taken on the cars to Brook-
haven, Boatwright still in command of the party. While on
the cars, a tall, awkward, loud-mouthed, and vile-tongued man
in dirty uniform, commenced to talk and banter with some of
our boys. Not getting the best of a wordy engagement, he
soon had his six-shooter out and valorously flourishing it in
the faces of unarmed prisoners, swore he could whip any five
Yanks on earth, and dared any man there to deny it. He
had a bottle of liquor with him which he began to drink, and
the more he drank the braver he became, until he began to
talk about killing one Yank, just to celebrate the day. He
carried this so far as to order us to draw lots for the honor of
being his target. His order not being obeyed, he cocked his
weapon and flourished it so recklessly that Boatwright, who
had until then scarcely noticed him, leveled a cocked revolver
at him and ordered him to lay down his gun. For a moment,
he looked at the cold, gray eyes behind the cocked revolver,
and then began with: "How are ye, pard?" to try and
make friends with Boatwright.

" I am no pard of a man that insults prisoners," said Boat-
wright, and he took the pistol from the cowardly ruffian, un-
capped it, threw his bottle of liquor out of the window, and
ordered him to take a seat and hold his tongue, which the
tall son of chivalry, completely cowed, seemed glad to do.

At Brookhaven, very much to our regret, Boatwright left
us. He seemed to have the right to go where he pleased as
an independent scout, as he called himself. I know of no
reason for his staying with us as long as he did, except to pre-
vent Warner from following us and seeking an opportunity to

THE SMOKED TANK. 61

wreak his vengeance on myself. In fact, he often spoke of
his fears on that point, and after the first night until he
left us, always insisted upon my sleeping with him. One
night, while we were at Morrisville, he took Lynn Cook
and myself to a tavern, and we all occupied the same
room. Before going to bed, he asked us to pledge our
word of honor to make no attempt to escape, and then un-
dressed and went to bed with us. He told us that he would
be very glad to have us get away and safely back to our
friends, but he did n't want us to escape while he was in charge
of us, for that would cause him trouble.

Just before he left us I had a long talk with him, and he
advised me to get away. He gave me all the points he could
about the best course to pursue in case I should escape. We
saw him go with great reluctance. Although he told of many
exploits in killing Union men and negroes, many of which, if
true, were extremely cruel and not to his credit, his whole
treatment of our party was a splendid example of real chivalry.
I have never seen or heard of him since, but whether he got
killed in some dare-devil venture, or, as such men were likely
to do, became a member of some gang of desperadoes after
the war, such as the James Brothers' gang, I warrant that for
personal coolness and nerve, he seldom, if ever, met his
superior; and whatever his lot, if he still lives, I would be glad
and proud to shake the hand of Boatwright and thank him
again for his kind and manly treatment.

At Brookhaven, Cook, Carr, and myself, laid many
plans for escape. Our schemes for getting away by stealth were
all in one way and another frustrated. Some of them, we
thought, by the treachery of our companions. We had joined
a larger party of prisoners, and there were now twenty-five

(5)

6a THE SMOKED YANK.

or thirty of us in all. If we could have united the whole party
in an attempt, we could easily have set ourselves at liberty by
force. But the majority were afraid to try it, claiming that
the whole village and country around would be in arms and
that we would be tracked by blood-hounds and either killed or
re-captured.

We were well treated. In fact a few of us, especially
Lynn Cook and Wm. Cook, who could play on the fiddle, and
myself and one or two other men, had some regular jollifica-
tions. Some of our guards who were strangers in the town,
formed the acquaintance of the young folks and got up danc-
ing parties. The ladies being largely in the majority, because
the young men were all away, in the army, some of us Yanks
were invited to the parties as the rebel girls said, just to fill
up the sets. We fancied that they found our company quite
as agreeable as that of any of the Johnnies.

At one of these dancing parties to which Lynn Cook and
myself were invited and taken under guard, we made an un-
successful attempt to escape. It was a warm evening and the
windows in the room were up. We arranged a cotillion in
which our two guards and ourselves were the gentlemen.
We confided our scheme to two of the ladies with whom we
had become familiar, and to whom we were pretending to
make love, and they agreed to assist. After the cotillion
ended, we called for a waltz, and while our two guards were
waltzing and only one guard with a gun left at the front door,
our partners were to continue the waltz together and let Lynn
and myself slip out of the window. The room was but dimly
lighted with one or two tallow candles. Cook went first, had
cleared the window and I was half out, when both our part-
ners screamed; "They are getting away. The Yanks are

THE SMOKED TANK. 63

getting away." The guards seized their guns, ran out at the
front door, and, as it was a bright moonlight night, we thought
the chances were against us and made as great speed in get-
ting back into the room as we had tried to make in getting out.

Whether our lady friends meant to play us a trick or
whether they saw we were noticed by others and screamed to
keep themselves from being implicated, we never found out,
for we were taken at once to our prison house without being
permitted as formerly to go home with our girls with guards
behind us. We were not invited to any more dances.

A few days after, we were taken on the cars back to
Morrisville, and from there on foot through Jackson, (which
place we helped to capture but a few months before,) to
Canton, another town that we had before been in sight of but
had not entered, there being, in the opinion of our commander,
too many rebels there at that time. As we were all cavalry
men and not used to walking, this journey in warm weather
over a sandy road, was hard on our feet. I nearly gave out
the first day, and I well remember how glad I was when the
rebel guards said that we would camp at a plantation we
were approaching.

On nearing this place, I recognized the house as one
that I had been in, on my return trip from Canton, before
mentioned. On that occasion, I rode up to this house and
found it full of Union soliers, who were literally stripping it.
They were even taking jewelry from the hands of the women.
It was customary when on such excursions, for the officer in
command to place guards at such houses to protect them
from pillage and the women from insult. Seeing no guard
at this house and cowardly work going on, I drew my sword,
declared that I was a detailed guard, drove the plunderers

64 THE SMOKED TANK.

away, and staid there until the rear guard came along. The
ladies were at the time, loud in their praise and profuse in
their thanks.

Now, as I neared the same house, tired, limping on
blistered feet, and hungry, I thought to myself and probably
said to my companions, "we will be well-treated here, because
these people owe me a good turn."

The place belonged to Doctor Lee. He came out as we
reached the house and the sergeant in charge told him that he
desired to camp for the night, and asked whether he could
have shelter and food for his men and prisoners. The doctor
was all excitement in a moment.

" Food for those damned Yankee thieves?" said he. "I'd
feed a hungry dog, but not a damned crumb will I give to a
thieving Yankee. If I could see them burning in hell, not a
damned drop would I give them to drink. I'll give them
shelter, damn them, yes, take them to the nigger quarters.
They say a nigger is as good as a white man. I say a nigger
is a damn sight better that a white Yankee, and the nigger
quarter is too good for them."

This, and much more, he rattled off. Who could blame
him? The negro quarters were, as he said, empty, be-
cause the Yankees had stolen the negroes away. And
what must be the feelings of any husband and father to re-
turn to his home and find that armed men had been there and
stripped the premises of every living and eatable thing, in-
sulted his wife and daughters, wantonly destroyed what they
could not use, and even robbed women of their finger rings.
Such had been this man's experience. Who could blame him
for his wrath?

Still, I did not then think of it in that light. I induced

THE SMOKED TANK. 65

one of the guards to go and tell him that I was the man that
had driven the other Yankees out of his house, and stood
guard over the ladies to protect them from further wrong. I
felt confident that when he heard this, he would invite me at
least, into his house and treat me with hospitality. But not so.
He sent back an insulting message, and the sergeant said that
he refused to allow any of the prisoners to have a mouthful of
food while on his place. It was now my turn to get angry,
at least, angry I got, and painfully angry, too. In all my life
I do n't think I have ever at any other time been so complete-
ly soaked and choked with passion as I was at that place.
The more I thought of the miserable return I was receiving
for the generous action I had performed, the more my blood
seemed to boil. My feet were painfully blistered. The ser-
geant had an old negro bring me some water in a tub in which
to bathe them. To this old negro, I told how I had been
there before, and what I had done, and he went away saying
he would try and get me something to eat. After an hour or
so, he came back with a large pan of corn bread and some
meat. By this time my indignation had mastered my hunger,
and I gave the food to my companions, telling them that if
they wanted to eat on that man's place, they could, but as for
me, I wanted no food that he could call his. I lay awake
nearly, if not quite, all night studying how to best take re-
venge on this Doctor Lee, as soon as I could get free. It
turned out that my blood had plenty of time to cool before I
got free.

CHAPTER VIII.

"TO THE VICTORS BELONG THE SPOILS" 1 LOSE MY SUS-
PENDERS A JOLLY REBEL RASCAL A CAPTAIN OF THE

HORSE MARINES.

On our arrival at Canton, we were drawn up in line
before the tent of Colonel Lee. We were told that he was
related to General R. E. Lee. Here we were searched, and
our names taken on the roll, and we were then sent to the
prison room, which was in the second story of a large brick
building.

Here we found about 150 other prisoners. The room, as
I remember it, was about 25x80 feet. There was in it a
common box heating stove with one lid on top. On this stove
the cooking for the whole party was done. The rations were
corn meal and bacon.

There being now nearly, if not quite, 200 men in the room
you can imagine that that stove had something to do. We
were divided into messes and each mess took its turn at the
stove. We got along very well with the cooking. As for
sleeping, those that had blankets, made a bed of them on the
floor. As there were no blankets in our party, we made our
bed on the floor without blankets.

When we entered this room, the prisoners already there
told us to conceal carefully any money or anything else we had
that we did n't want stolen, and to cut holes in our clothes.

THE SMOKED TANK. 67

We had only been there a few hours when we found out why
we were so advised.

The guards on duty in and around the building were re-
lieved every day at noon. The sergeant and squad of men
that came to relieve the guards on duty, required all of the
prisoners to stand up in rows to be counted. The sergeant
counted and the soldiers searched each man in turn . Not only
our party that had just arrived but every man in the room,
and, strange to say, although this searching process had been
gone through with by every new guard that had come on duty
since the first prisoners were kept there, hardly a day passed
but some rebel succeeded in finding something that had been
successfully concealed through all previous searches. I re-
member of a breastpin being found concealed in the hem of a
man's woolen shirt after he had been searched daily for weeks.
And every day some such new find was made, and, of course,
kept by the finder as spoils of war.

The old democratic maxim, " To the victor belongs the
spoils," was never more thoroughly practiced than by those
same democrats who had charge of that rebel prison.

The search of the new comers was always more thorough
than of the rest. Our party, being warned, did not furnish
much in the way of spoils, though every man who had failed
to slit his clothes lost them. Sometimes the reb. would ex-
change what he had on for what the Yank had and sometimes
he would take it without exchange.

The only thing that I had left which seemed to excite the
cupidity of the cowardly set was a pair of suspenders. These,
one of the Johnnies ordered me to take off. I refused. We
had some words and he stepped back and cocked his gun. A
dozen men spoke up urging me to give up the suspenders,

68 THE SMOKED TANK.

saying they were not worth the risk of being shot. I gave
them up, though my own opinion was that the man would not
have shot had I braved it out.

Many ingenious plans were contrived to conceal valuables.
Some took apart the brass buttons on their coats and neatly
put them together again with greenbacks inside. Others
took the heels off from boots or shoes and hollowed them out
so as to hide in them money, jewelry, etc., but the button and
heel racket, as the boys would say these days, the rebels
caught on to, and one day every brass button was taken from
the room and every heel examined.

Thomas Davidson of our party had $90 in greenbacks
and kept it through all searches. He kept it between some
dirty pieces of brown paper and whenever the Johnnies began
to search, he laid his dirty brown paper on the floor among
other litter and let the robbers tread on it.

We had not been in this room many days when a rebel
put in an appearance who was to us the type of a new species.
He was a young fellow, not over twenty, tall, slim, black
hair, black eyes, smooth face, and very handsome. " Hand-
some is that handsome does," had no application to him. He
was a handsome rascal, but there was a reckless abandon, a
good humored deviltry about his rascality, that compelled a
kind of admiration.

When he first entered the room he announced that he was
a prisoner, too, and had come to form the acquaintance of his
fellow prisoners.

He was dressed in a neatly-fitting suit of home-spun but-
ternut. Long tailed frock coat, closely fitting pants, broad
brimmed hat, and high heeled calf boots. His small hands
and long tapered fingers and small feet betokened a long line

THE SMOKED YANK. 69

of genteelly worthless if not genteel ancestry. He wore a
belt and two six-shooters of the best pattern, and had spurs on
his boots. He was under arrest and awaiting trial, as he told
us, for some scrape he had been in where a few negroes had
been killed.

On his second visit, he complained that he had n't had a
gallop for so long that he feared that he would forget how to
ride, and wanted to know if some Yank did n't want to play
horse. Whether or not anyone volunteered, I cannot now re-
member, but he was soon riding Yanks whether they wanted
him to or not. He climbed on their backs and would make
them gallop, as he called it, up and down the room, using his
spurs the same as he would on a horse.

The guards seemed to be afraid of him and the prisoners
were either afraid or deemed it more prudent to submit to his
devilment than to have a row.

Carr, however, declared that if he was ever called on to
play horse, he would pitch the rider through the window.
Some one told the rebel what Carr had said, and so he pro-
posed to ride Carr.

"All right," said Carr, "you are welcome to ride me if
you can, but do n't blame me if you get hurt. I am an ornery
sort of a cuss, anyway, and I do n't know what kind of an ani-
mal I would make if I were turned into a horse."

Those of us who knew Carr best, dreaded the result.
We felt that this rebel must be a favorite with the officers in
charge, or they would not permit his wild capers that had be-
come notorious, and, although we believed Carr could take
care of himself notwithstanding the revolvers the rebel wore,
we could not tell what the rebel officers might do if the man
should be hurt. We tried to get the rebel to play some other

70 THE SMOKED TANK.

game. He* would not. He wanted to break in a new horse.

Carr walked to one end of the room. The rebel got on,
and Carr sure enough started as fast as he could go for the
window at the other end of the room, but the rebel, having
been warned, got off before the window was reached. He
began to bluster but had hardly time to utter a word before
Carr was standing close in front of him. For a moment those
two black-eyed men glared at each other. Carr spoke no
word, but something that the rebel saw in his flashing eyes
and pallid face caused him to turn on his heel and propose
some other game.

One day some new prisoners, " fresh fish," were brought
in. They were from the Marine Brigade — Germans — at
least the two officers, a captain and a lieutenant, were Ger-
mans. The captain had on a fine pair of high-topped, patent
leather cavalry boots. He also had a fine meerschaum pipe,
a handsomely trimmed, well filled bag of the best tobacco,
and some money.

Our rebel tormentor began at once to make love to this
Dutch Captain. He smoked and praised his pipe, admired
his boots, and told the captain that he would stand by him and
see that these things were not taken by the rebel guard. And
stand by him he did, for when the new guard came in and the
" fresh fish " stood up with the rest of us to be counted and
robbed, this rebel rascal led the captain to one side, and the
guards did not offer to disobey his commands that they should
let this prisoner alone.

That night we were all awakened by loud swearing in
Dutch brogue and a big racket generally : " Help ! Help !
MeinGott! MeinGott! Mein Gott in Himmel!! Help every-
bodies ! Help ! Help ! " and other such exclamations were

THE SMOKED YANK. 7:

coming from the Dutch captain, who was being dragged
around the room by his rebel protector. The rebel had se-
cured the pipe, tobacco, and money, and was engaged in re-
moving the boots, which the captain had for safety not taken
off when he went to bed. Our sympathies were, of course,
with the captain, but the scene, as a sequel to the solicitous
friendship of the previous day, and the mixture of Dutch and
Dutch brogue, that poured from the mouth of the captain,
was so comical that we could not restrain our laughter. The
captain always said afterwards that " Doze Yankee vat makes
de big laugh bes a dam site vurse in my esteem dan der John-
nies vot stole mine boots."

The next day the rebel brought in a cob pipe for the
captain, and allowed him to fill it from the ornamental tobacco
pouch. The rebel was smoking the meerschaum pipe, which
he said had been presented to him by one of the officers of the
" Sea Horse Cavalry."

These were samples of the capers of that handsome ras-
cal. He was one of a very numerous class well described by
Sherman on page 337, of Volume I, of his memoirs, where
he says:

"Fourth. The young bloods of the South, sons of
planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard players and sports-
men, men who never did do any work and never will. War
suits them and the rascals are brave, fine riders, bold to rash-
ness, and dangerous subjects in every sense. They care not
a sou for niggers, land, or anything. They hate Yankees
per se, and do n't bother their brains about the past, present, or
future. As long as they have good horses, plenty of forage
and an open country, they are happy. This is a larger class
than most men suppose, and they are the most dangerous set

7a THE SMOKED TANK.

of men that this war has turned loose upon the world. They
are splendid riders, first-rate shots and utterly reckless. *
* * * * * * They are the best

cavalry in the world, but it will tax Mr. Chase's genius for
finance to supply them with horses. At present, horses cost
them nothing, for they take where they find, and do n't bother
their brains as to who is to pay for them; the same may be
said of the corn fields, which have, as they believe, been cul-
tivated by a good natured people for their especial benefit.
We propose to share with them the free use of the corn
fields, planted by willing hands, that will never gather the
crops."

CHAPTER IX.

MOVED TO CAHABA, ALABAMA A LITTLE LEAVEN FOR THE

LOAF 1 BORROW BOOKS, WRITE NOTES, AND BECOME

SENTIMENTAL A PROMISING ROMANCE NIPPED IN THE

BUD.

The railroads from Canton, east, having been destroyed
by Sherman on his Meridian campaign, we were marched on
foot across the country. For rations, we were given each
night a sack of meal and some meat. Our guards seemed to
think we needed nothing to cook in. We mixed the meal
with water in buckets, and then baked it by our camp-fire,
either by filling a husk from an ear of corn, tying the end and
covering it in the ashes, or by spreading stiff dough on a board
and standing it up before the fire.

After several days of such marching, we arrived foot-
sore and weary at a railroad station, and from there we were
taken on the cars to Selma, Alabama.

The country between the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers
that we crossed on the way, seemed to me then to be the
finest and richest that I had ever seen. From Selma, we
were taken to Cahaba, twelve miles below, on the Alabama
river. Here we joined a still larger body of Union soldiers
who had been taken prisoners. With our party, there were
in all five or six hundred.

The prison was a large cotton warehouse. The outer

74 THE SMOKED TANK.

wall was of brick and enclosed a large circle. Inside, a circle
of posts twenty or thirty feet from the wall, supported the
roof which sloped outward to the wall. The circle inside the
posts was uncovered. Under a portion of the roof, bunks had
been built, one over another, for the prisoners to sleep on.
These were more than full before our arrival, and we had to
take up our quarters on the ground, there being no floor in the
enclosure.

We were here two or three weeks, during which time
nothing of importance transpired. We thought then that we
were most inhumanely treated because we were given no bed-
ding or blankets, and nothing but the ground to sleep on.
Otherwise, we had nothing to complain of; our food was
wholesome and sufficient.

The two officers in charge of the prison, a captain and a
lieutenant, whose names I would gladly mention if I could
remember them, were gentlemen. We did not know enough
then about life in rebel prisons to fully appreciate their kind-
ness. Every day on the arrival of the mail, one of them
would bring in a late paper, stand up on a box and read the
news. In many other ways, such as procuring writing
material and forwarding letters for us, they manifested such
kindly feeling as one honorable soldier will always manifest
toward a brother soldier, enemy though he be, in misfortune.

On our arrival at Cahaba, we were taken, a few at a time,
into a room, where these officers had each of us thoroughly
searched, telling us at the same time to give up everything
in the line of knives, jewelry, watches, or money, and that
they would keep a list of everything, and return all at a
proper time. We thought this a ruse to get us to give up
what few things we had managed to secrete from all previous

THE SMOKED YANK. 75

searches. Let it be said to their honor, that they carried out
their promises to the letter, and that when we were taken from
Cahaba to Andersonville prison-pen, they came in and re-
turned to every Cahaba prisoner, the articles taken, as shown
by the list. They then expressed their sorrow and shame
for the horrors of that awful place.

One thing they did which was wrong, if they did it know-
ingly. The day we were to leave Cahaba, one of them came
in to read as usual, and read from a paper a long account of
an arrangement having been made for an exchange of prison-
ers. They led us to believe that we were to be taken at once
to the place agreed on for exchange, thus preventing many
of us from making an attempt to escape, as we surely would
have done, had we not been deluded by the hope of
exchange.

I must not, however, leave Cahaba without mention of
one example of truly chivalrous conduct. Soon after entering
that prison, I noticed that many of the prisoners were reading
books, and pamphlets, histories, novels, and books on philoso-
phy, science, and religion. Some of these books were new
and nicely bound, others much worn and evidently the worse
from prison use. By inquiring, I found that these books were
furnished to the prisoners by a young lady who lived near the
prison, and that by sending a request by one of the rebel
guards, I could get a book. I accordingly wrote a polite note,
saying that I would be glad to borrow something to read, and
sent it to this lady by one of the rebel guards. He returned
with one of Scott's novels. Having read this, I returned it
and got another, and had something to read all the time I was
there, as did every other prisoner who so desired.

The books she sent, whether all her own or borrowed in

76 THE SMOKED TANK.

part, were almost all so badly worn and soiled by the
constant use in hands none too clean, as to be of little value
afterward. In fact, that young lady sacrificed her library
for our sakes; and, in doing so, she furnished the only ex-
ample that I ever witnessed or of which I have ever heard,
of disinterested kindness to a Yankee prisoner from a rebel
lady.

The note I sent out for books was addressed to Miss
Belle Gardner. Returning the first book obtained, I sent a
note of thanks and a request for another book and so on, mak-
ing each note a little longer and a little less formal until I drew
from her a short note in reply. Then with each new book, I
got a note.

Young as I was, naturally fond of adventure, and the
natural bent of my mind stimulated by constant reading of
Scott's, Bulwer's, and other novels, is it any wonder that my
correspondence with this young lady began to seem to me
romantic, and that I began to entertain for her feelings stronger
than those of gratitude? I was not head over heels in love,
badly mashed as you boys of today would say, but I was
conscious of a turbulent desire to see my kind but unknown
correspondent.

There was an enclosure or yard around the door of the
prison where we did our washing and cooking. It was a high
board fence, the boards nailed on up and down close together.
Only those whose turn it was to do the cooking for a mess
were allowed to be in this yard. One day when I was out
there as cook, I ascertained from a guard that Miss Belle
lived in a house across the street. Then I enlarged the crack
between two boards of the fence with a jack-knife, making a
hole large enough so that I could get a good view of the

THE SMOKED TANK.

77

house. There was no trouble about getting into this yard;
all I had to do was to take the place of someone whose turn it
was to cook and who found no pleasure in the task. For
several days, most of my time was spent at my hole in the
wall, eager for a glimpse of the damsel whom my excited
imagination had pictured as possessing all the beauty, loveli-
ness, grace, and other heroine qualities of a Rebecca.

My vigils were never rewarded. I sent her a note re-
questing her to appear at a certain hour on the porch. She
never appeared. Then I cultivated the acquaintance of one of
the guards, and was in a fair way to arrange through him for
a meeting outside the prison, when orders came for our re-
moval, and the conditions and materials for an exquisite ro-
mance in real life were rudely broken and scattered.

(6)

CHAPTER X.

CAHABA REVISITED IN 1884 A DELIGHTFUL RIDE THE

FREEDMEN OF THE SOUTH A DESERTED VILLAGE AN

OLD MANSION MRS. GARDNER, "THE FRIEND OF THE

UNFORTUNATE."

In the spring of 1884, just after the opening chapter of
this little book was written, finding it almost impossible to
write with any satisfaction while subject to the usual interrup-
tions and annoyances of business life, I resolved to cut loose
from all communications, and devote a few weeks exclusively
to the work in hand. Besides, I had often thought I would
like to see that Southern country again, and that a trip over
the old war path would quicken my recollection of the places
and incidents about which I wished to write. Of course I
visited Cahaba.

I arrived at Selma early in April, just twenty years to a
day from the time I went through there a prisoner of war.

Selma is a beautiful city of five or six thousand people,
situated on the Alabama River, and in the " black belt " of
Alabama. Had always supposed that the " black belt " of
Alabama was a region where black negroes were thicker
than elsewhere. It is the region of black soil. I was not far
out of the way, however, because the negroes are thicker in
the "black belt" than elsewhere.

I shall always remember with pleasure my ride on that

THE SMOKED YANK. 79

delightful April morning from Selma down the river to Cahaba.
April there corresponds to June here in South Dakota. I
rode horse-back. It was to me like riding through a botani-
cal paradise. Spring-time just blooming into summer and such
a profusion of flowers. There were great trees loaded with
blossoms, and the ground was covered with flowers in full
bloom. Where the road passed through cultivated land, the
hedge on each side was covered with the Cherokee rose, and
was a solid mass of variegated color. There were great, tall,
pine trees covered to the top with the blossoms of the Chero-
kee rose. And then the music in the air from the thousands
of feathered songsters, each singing as though it were trying
to drown the notes of all the rest.

It was Saturday, and market day. The road was thronged
with negroes going to market. What subjects there for an
artist's sketch-book. All kinds and conditions of the farming
class of negroes. Some on foot, carrying bundles on their
heads. Some on mules or horses, carrying all manner of
truck before and behind; some in carts or wagons drawn
by mules or horses, or a horse and a mule, and sometimes a
mule and an ox. Old, broken-down horses, lame or blind, or
both, hitched to older and worse broken buggies and car-
riage,0, with old straps and ropes, which were tied together
for harness. Men, women, and children ; it seemed as though no
member of any family had staid at home. Chickens, ducks,
geese, pigs, sheep, a fatted calf, garden truck, butter, eggs,
and one bale of cotton, were being hauled, carried or " toted "
to market.

One day spent at the market in Selma, on market-day,
will give a man a better idea of the condition of the freedmen
of the South than he can get by reading all the speeches on

8o THE SMOKED TANK.

that subject that have been printed in the Congressional
Globe, during the last twenty years.

I had remembered Cahaba as a bright little town of two
or three thousand inhabitants. As I approached the place
that morning, I noticed with some surprise that the road in-
stead of becoming better traveled, was dwindling away to a
mere wood road, such as the use from an ordinary farm would
make. Coming out of the woods to the river bank and look-
ing across to where I expected to see a city, behold, there
were but a few, and those apparently abandoned, houses.
There is an old-fashioned ferry worked with poles. It takes
nearly an hour of yelling to bring the ferryman, who explains
to me that "De City ob Cahaba mos' all ben moved to Selma."
Cahaba was once the capital of Alabama. Before the war,
it was the county seat, and a prosperous place; had a railroad;
the county seat was moved to Selma, and then the town
died. The railroad was abandoned, and most of the brick
houses were taken down and transported on boats to Selma
and other places. To a northern man, it seems strange that a
town located on a navigable river, with railroad communica-
tions, could be brought so low.

There was nothing there, not even a brick or stone, noth-
ing but a rank growth of weeds to mark the place where the
old prison warehouse stood. Only a few white families were
left in the place, and these were very poor. I found a white
man, George Brenner, who wras one of the guards when the
Yankee prisoners were there. He knew the Gardners; was
living in the house that was occupied by them when I was a
prisoner. It was not the house that I had watched so long
and so anxiously through my hole in the fence. I had been
the victim of a guard's mistake. This man told me that the
Gardners were living in

THE SMOKED YANK. 81

I was much interested in this " Deserted Village." It is
a charming site for a city, and on the banks of one of the most
beautiful rivers in the world.

About half a mile from the center of the old town, there
stands an old mansion, not old enough to have shown the rav-
ages of time had there been no years of neglect, which is, on
a smaller scale, almost a fac simile of the White House at
Washington. It is white, finished on the outside in imitation of
stone, has an imposing porch with Grecian columns, grand hall
and stairway, and large rooms with high ceilings. The ex-
tensive grounds are artistically laid out. There are graveled
walks, flowers, shrubbery, and trees in endless variety. There
are two artesian wells, one of them said to be the second in
rank in all the world measured by the force with which the
water comes out. It was out of repair when I was there, but
the old woman in charge said that if I were to drop a twenty-
dollar gold piece into the pipe, it would fly right up in the air.
I took her word for it.

All this property is under the charge of one old negro
woman. She had lived there a long time before the war as a
slave, and I sat for hours listening to her stories of the grand
old times she used to see in that mansion. Weddings, balls,
parties that lasted for weeks. It was one of the places where
in her days of wealth and lavish hospitality, the " Sunny South "
had been wont to gather her " beauty and her chivalry."

What a delightful story it would make if some such
writer as Cable should re-people that old town and that old
mansion, and weave into fiction the facts that such old negroes
could give.

I found Mrs. Amanda Gardner living with her daughter
Belle, in a rented house, in Selma. She is over 60 years old,

82 THE SMOKED YANK.

but quite active for one of that age. She is of good family,
and in every sense, a lady of culture and refinement. She- is
a fluent talker and uses elegant language. One of the leading
men of the place told me that Mrs. Gardner had the reputation
of being one of the kindest-hearted and most intelligent women
in the country. The daughter, Belle, is a dressmaker, an
occupation she very much dislikes, but is compelled to follow,
in order to earn a living for herself and mother. Belle was
only a little girl of thirteen or fourteen, in April, 1864, and
wore short dresses.

Mrs. Gardner was during the war, and still is, for that
matter, a thorough rebel. That is, she believed the South
was right, and still believes so. She had one son killed early
in the war, and another, a mere boy, was in the service and
was taken prisoner at Selma, by General Wilson's cavalry.
Wilson's men had heard of Mrs. Gardner's kindness to Union
prisoners, and as a token of appreciation, they set her boy at
liberty and sent him home to his mother.

Mrs. Gardner said that when the prison was established
at Cahaba, she had a large library of choice books that had
been given to her by her uncle, Judge Beverly Walker, of
Augusta. It was his private library, and he gave it to her
when he broke up house-keeping. She said that her heart
was moved to pity by the forlorn condition of the prisoners,
and she began to loan them books. She had all the standard
poets, in handsome binding. Scott's, Dickens', and Lytton's
novels, and many others in complete sets. Histories, biogra-
phies, books of travel, works on science, philosophy, and
religion. A large and well-selected private library. Nearly
all of these books were completely worn out. Only those in
calf binding and on the less interesting subjects of philosophy,

THE SMOKED TANK. 83

science, and religion, were left whole, and even these were
much worn and soiled. I saw in a second-hand store and
auction house at Selma, where she had placed them for sale,
two or three dozen of those worn and soiled books, all that
was left of Mrs. Gardner's once elegant library.

Lending books was not all that Mrs. Gardner did. She
took especial interest in those that became sick, and procured
and furnished them with suitable food and medicines. Several
were nursed in her own house. When winter came, many of
the prisoners had no blankets and but little clothing. She
gave them everything she had in her house that she could
possibly spare, and procured all she could from her neghbors.
Said she took up every carpet she had and cut it into pieces
the size of a blanket, in order to relieve the sufferings of those
poor prisoners.

These things were not done in a corner. Mrs. Gardner
was arraigned, either before the church or some citizens'
meeting, on the charge of being a Union woman, and of fur-
nishing aid and comfort to the enemy. Captain H. H. N.
Henderson, who had the immediate charge of the prison,
came to her relief and boldly defended her, endorsing all she
had done. Had it not been for his assistance, she would
doubtless have been found guilty, and banished. I presume
that he is the officer that had charge of the prison when I was
there, and who went with us to Andersonville.

Mrs. Gardner showed me over one hundred notes written
by prisoners, some addressed to her, and some to Miss Belle.
These tell the story of what she did, and at the same time
furnish indisputable proof of it. She had two bundles of these
notes containing requests and acknowledgments, but she lost
one bundle when she moved from Cahaba to Selma. I did

84 THE SMOKED YANK.

not find among those she had, any that were written by my-
self. She has also received since the war, a good many letters
from prisoners whom she befriended, and some have re-
membered her with presents.

When I saw the proofs that Mrs. Gardner possessed, of
the things she did, and the sacrifices she made for Union
prisoners, I supposed it would be the easiest thing in the world
to get congress to pass an act for her relief and remuneration.
I at once opened correspondence with senators and members of
the House. They all said that to pass such an act, would be
to let down the bars for thousands of other claims in which
there was no merit. It would be a precedent that they
dare not establish.

Something ought to be done for Mrs. Gardner. She is
old and poor, and is probably the only southern lady of rebel
sentiments, who actuated by Christian charity alone, furnished
aid and comfort to distressed Union prisoners.

NOTE. — Mrs. Amanda Gardner is now living with her daughter Belle,
in New York. She is at this date, February, 1888, seventy-two years old.
Her address is No. 4, West Thirteenth Street. The following are samples of
the notes she has kept that were sent her by Union prisoners :

MILITARY PRISON, )
CAHABA, ALA., June 4th. \

Mrs. Amanda Gardner: Will you please send some books to the sub-
scribers to while away the hours of prison life. Respectfully,

J. R. BOWEN,
CHAS. REYNOLDS,
CHAS. HARRIS,
JAMES FARRELL.

CASTLE MORGAN, June, 5th.

Mrs. Amanda Gardner: Please accept my thanks for the loan of this;
be kind enough to send me another. CHAS. HARRIS,

Co. K, 'i 3th Ills. Vol.

CAHABA PRISON, March i4th.

Mrs. Gardner: If you please to send me some nice interesting book to
read and I will return it with care. B. F. DAUGHTERY,

Private of Co. H, 37th Reg't. Ills. Inft. Vol.

THE SMOKED TANK. 85

PRISON.

Mrs. Gardner: Will you please let five of us have your washing machine
and tub to wash some clothes. CLEMENT BALLINGER.

CAHABA, ALA., March 5, 1865.
Mrs. Amanda Gardner:

KIND MADAM — We are all about to bid farewell to Castle Morgan. Some
are already on their homeward journey; we will soon follow, rejoicing we are
once more free. I feel I cannot leave without first expressing my heartfelt
thanks to you for the noble and humane kindness you have so generously be-
stowed upon the prisoners while confined here; aiding them by the kind dis-
pensation of your books amongst them, to while away the tedious hours of
captivity both pleasantly and instructively, which otherwise would have been
passed in discontent and lonesome weariness. I regret exceedingly, that there
were some among them, who were so worthless, as to abuse your books in a
shameful manner, but the majority appreciating the noble impulses of thy
generous heart, were careful in the use of the works, knowing full well that
you were making a noble sacrifice of your library for their benefit. I regret
that one of the books returned to you, entitled " Famous Persons and Places,"
is so badly abused ; it was stolen from me, and for a long time I knew not what
had become of it; after making repeated inquiries, it was returned to me in its
present condition. Trusting you will pardon me, as I regret exceedingly that
such a thing occurred. Be assured, kind Madam, that when we are once more
surrounded by kind and loving friends, and in the enjoyment of all that makes
life happy and agreeable, our thoughts will often revert to our kind Bene-
factress at Cahaba; many a silent prayer will be sent heavenward, that you
and your lovely family may be spared the horrors of this unnatural and re-
lentless war. Many a man will speak in glowing terms of thy noble gener-
osity, and you will ever be remembered as a friend of the unfortunate. The
day is not far distant when Peace, the great tranquilizer, will again unite our
distracted country in perfect harmony and unity. The end is fast approaching
when we may again e njoy all the requisites that make life both pleasant and
agreeable. Civil and Religious Liberty is just as sure to rule supreme, as
Jehovah guides the Universe.

May Heaven's richest blessings descend upon you and your darling family;
and when thou art called hence to that "bourne whence no traveler returns,"
may you ascend to that glorious abode of angels, " where wars, and rumors of
wars are never heard," is the wish of one who is happy to subscribe himself
your well wisher. Farewell.

Very respectfully,

C. W. HAYES,
Hospital Steward, 3rd. Ills. Vol. Cavalry.

CAHABA PRISON.

Mrs. Gardner: Will you please send a book to read. I will take care of
it, and return it in good order. GEO. H. CHADWICK,

Co. C, ist Ills. Cav.

Mrs. Gardner: May the blessing of God ever descend upon thy devoted
head, for your kind consideration concerning the unfortunate, is the prayer of
one who appreciates the noble impulses of thy generous heart.

Yours in friendship, A PRISONER.

ADDRESS:

" Mrs. Amanda Gardner,

Cahaba, Alabama.
A lady of excellent worth, and a friend to those in distress."

86 THE SMOKED YANK.

CAHABA, ALA., PRISON, )
April ii, 1864. )

Mrs.Gardner : Please lend me " Botta's History." I will take good care
of it and return when done. Your Ob't Serv't, JAS. B. SLUSSER,

3rd. Ills. Cav. Vol.

CASTLE MORGAN, )
July 8, '64. \
Mrs. A. Gardner:

DEAR MADAM — I return the book that you lent me, and am very much
obliged to you for it. I have taken the best care of it that I could . If you
have the other volume of the same work, I would be very glad if you would
lend it to me; and if not, I am glad to get any book that is" interesting.

Yours Respectfully,

WILLIAM ENGLISH,

Co. F, 7th Ky. Cavalry.

CAHABA, ALA., )
July nth, 1864. \

Madam: In returning the accompanying books with many thanks, I
would respectfully beg of you the loan of another. Yours Obediently,

J. W. S. BEATTIE,
2d La. Fed. Cavalry.

Madam: Will you be so kind as to send me — a prisoner — one or two
books to pass away the time. Having heard from our men how kind you have
been in sending reading matter to them, I make so bold in addressing you in
my behalf. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obd't servant,

THOS. MCELROY,

To— Capt. U. S. Navy.

Mrs. Gardner.

CAHABA PRISON, May 2ist.

Mrs. Gardner : Please excuse me for troubling you for a little vinegar, as
I have a high fever every day and crave it, and I believe it would do me much
good. Yours with respect, MICHAEL O'FARREL,

n8th 111. Mt'd Inft.

APRIL 1 5th, 1864.
Will Mrs. Gardner please send me a book to read, and oblige,

Very Resp't, JAMES MILLER.

4th U. S. Cav.

CAHABA, Jan. i8th, 1864.

Respected Madam: An unfortunate prisoner of war begs you will excuse
the liberty he has taken in thus addressing you. Your many acts of kindness
to us will ever be gratefully remembered. If possible to repay you, how
gladly would we. But Madam we know your noble heart would resent any
such offering, and we have only the opportunity left us of returning you the

THE SMOKED YANK. 87

heartfelt thanks of all the prisoners. And now I trespass on your kindness
still further. My time for service has nearly expired. I do most earnestly
desire to be exchanged. If within your power, by your kindly influence, to
assist me, the remembrance of the happiness you would confer on an unfortun-
ate man, I am sure, would amply repay your generous nature.

I am, most respectfully,

ANDREW MCFARLAND.

NOTE. — My mother secured his exchange, and he went his way rejoicing.

— BELLE GARDNER.

CHAPTER XL

WE LEAVE CAHABA A SONG BATTLE "LET THE DAMN

YANKEES STARVE" — WE ENTER ANDERSONVILLE — WALK-
ING MUMMIES AND SMOKED SKELETONS DISCOURAGING

PROSPECTS.

I have already stated that we were moved from Cahaba
to Andersonville. Before starting, three days' rations of meat,
rice, and meal, were issued to us. Unfortunately, we cooked
it all, and before we reached Montgomery, by steamboat — it
is needless to remark that we were all deck passengers — our
rations of rice and meal had soured, and could not be eaten.
At Montgomery, the officers procured all the meal they could
for us, but not enough to go round. There we were put on
flat-cars, some in box-cars, and started, as we were told, to
Savannah to be exchanged.

At Columbus, our locomotive gave out and our rations
likewise, and we stopped for repairs. We were there from
noon of one day until afternoon of the next. Although we
were all without food and hungry, and made our necessities
known to hundreds of people that flocked around to see us,
an ear of corn each was all we received. I was satisfied that
the officers in charge tried to do better by us, but there was
no quartermaster there, and they had no money with which to
pay for what the citizens were unwilling to give. We heard
many such remarks as: "Let the damn Yankees starve.

THE SMOKED TANK. 89

They will soon learn to do without eating, and they may as
well begin now," etc. Had we known then what we soon
after learned, we would surely have made a break for liberty.

There was an old unoccupied hotel building near the
railroad track, and our guards allowed some of us to go into
it to pass the night. It was a beautiful moonlight-evening,
and a crowd of young people, boys and young ladies, gathered
there to see us. Some of our boys began to sing Union
songs. Then the southern girls gave us a rebel song, and
directly we were having a song-battle, and turn about, we
fired songs at each other until long into the night.

At Fort Valley, in Georgia, we were turned on to a track
that we knew did not lead to Savannah, and by inquiring from
those who came around to see the Yankee prisoners, we
learned that Andersonville, the great prison-pen, was on the
road ahead of us. Our guards, too, were doubled there. But
though our hopes of immediate exchange began to vanish,
little did we dream what Andersonville meant. We supposed
it to be something like Cahaba, and though that was not a
comfortable place, it was endurable. We were out of food
when we got to Columbus. Forty-eight hours afterward, we
came in sight of a stockade in which,, we were told, there were
20,000 Union soldiers. Forty-eight hours without other food
than a little corn, makes a healthy man hungry. I was not
only healthy, but young and growing. I was hungry, but I
thought to myself, in fact it was the expressed thought of all,
we will soon be among friends who will be glad to relieve
our pressing wants. In this instance there was more pleasure
in anticipation than in participation.

No pen, no words can describe, no pencil can approach
the scene that burst upon our astonished eyes, as we entered

90 THE SMOKED YANK.

the gate of that — I shall not call it infernal, nor terrible, nor
horrible, nor hell's hole, but simply Andersonville ; and here-
after, when a writer would describe a misery so infernal, or
depict a horror so atrocious that no suitable words can be
found in any language, let him merely liken it unto the
miseries and horrors of Andersonville.

The sun was just setting when we started from the station
to the prison. It was about dark when we reached the outer
gate. As we approached, sounds came to our ears, at first
like the roaring of the sea, heard a long way off. Drawing
nearer, the noise resembled somewhat that made by a large
army going into camp. It was unlike the noise of an army
or the roar of a large city, because there were no sounds of
wheels or rattle of tools. It was a Babel of human voices
only. There was something strangely doleful and ominous,
even in those sounds.

The gates "were thrown open. On each side of what
seemed a street, leaving room for us to pass in column of
twos, we saw a dense mass of beings. Those in the front
rank held in their hands cups, cans, and little pails, and chunks
of bread. They are there, we thought, to hand us food as we
pass. We entered. The line on either side was a lint of
living, human skeletons, walking mummies; ragged, many
nearly naked, all skin and bone, black as Indians, not exactly
smoked Yanks, but the smoked skeletons of Yanks. We
were hungry. These men seemed to be starved. There
they stood, their great eyes protruding beyond their gaunt
and bony cheeks; their limbs, half covered, showed great,
swollen joints, black, bruised-looking elbows and knees, and
great puff-balls for feet. The feet of many, looked like box-
ing gloves. All this we saw in sections, as it were, by the

THE SMOKED YANK. 9:

uncanny, flickering smoking light of a pine knot torch or a
" fat " pine stick, that here and there one of the creatures held
in his hand.

"The brows of (these) men, by the despairing light,
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them."

Yes, nearly every one of the front rank had food or wood
in his hands, but not to give. They were there to barter or
to sell. The majority of us had nothing with which to buy,
nothing to trade. We did not ask for anything. There was
that in these surroundings which, if it did not make us forget
our hunger, made us feel that our misery was not worthy of
mention. I have noticed that beggars on a street do not so-
licit alms while a funeral procession is going by.

We stood a long time in that street before we were
assigned even a portion of bare ground on which to stretch
our weary limbs. The two rebel officers who had been in
charge of us from Cahaba, set about getting us something to
eat. About 10 o'clock, rations were sent in; a pint of corn
meal and a little salt for each man. Raw meal and salt!
How cook it? What in? What with? In all that pen,
you could n't pick up enough wood to make a match. We
had nothing to draw our rations in, much less to cook them
in. I turned the sleeve of my jacket, tied the end with a
piece of the lining, and in this, received a quart of meal for
myself and Lynn B. Cook. We were bunk-mates or bed-
fellows, without either bunk or bed. Some mixed their meal
and salt with a little water and ate it raw. Others bought or
traded for a little wood and borrowed pans in which to bake.
Cook and myself found a Grant county man from a Wisconsin
regiment, who was kind enough to lend us a skillet and a little
wood, Our hunger appeased, we lay down on the bare ground

92 THE SMOKED YANK.

without cover or shelter, to sleep, and thus we passed our
first night in Andersonville.

The next morning we were counted off into divisions,
ninety in a division. Twelve divisions formed what was called
a detatchment. To each detachment was allotted a small
piece of bare ground on which to camp. We were told
that this bare ground to sleep on, a scant pint of meal, a
quarter of a pound of meat or its equivalent in rice or beans,
and a piece of green wood as large as a small piece of stove
wood, these once each day, and a spoonful of salt once
each week, were what we would get, and all we would get
to live on.

Are we to have no tents, no blankets, nothing to cook in?
No ! Will we not be given, or allowed to get, forks and poles
and brush with which to make a shelter that will protect us
from the scorching sun and the pitiless rain? No! You have
your ground, you will get your rations, nothing more. Is it
surprising that we could hardly believe our ears, that stout
hearts quailed, and strong men lost their courage and lay
down, broken in spirit?

Andersonville is situated in the sparsely settled piney
woods of southern Georgia. It is a rolling country abounding
in creeks and swamps. Pine trees cover the high land, and
along the streams and swamps there are gum and other trees
that flourish in wet soil, and thick underbrush.

The prison was made by enclosing sixteen acres of this
land by a stockade. The stockade was made of logs twenty-
five feet long, uniform in size, hewed on two sides, set upright
and close together in a ditch five feet deep. The dirt being
filled in and tamped around the bottom, these logs form a solid
wooden wall twenty-five feet above the ground. On the out-

THE SMOKED YANK. 93

side of this wall, at regular intervals of about sixty yards, scaf-
folds were built with steps leading up to them, and on these
scaffolds, which were three feet lower than the top of the
wall, the guards stood.

On the inside of this wall and twenty-five feet from it,
is the dead-line. This is a row of posts driven into the ground
with poles or narrow boards nailed on top so as to form a rail-
ing three feet high all around the inside of the stockade.

This sixteen-acre pen or field, was a rectangle in form,
the east and west sides longer than the north and south. A
small stream ran through from west to east dividing the inte-
rior into what was called north and south sides. This stream
furnished the water supply and the sewerage. The sink was
at the lower end of the stream. Forks driven into the ground
supported poles upon which the prisoners sat, their droppings
falling into the stream. Above the sink, the stream was used
for washing and bathing. Water for cooking and drinking
was obtained between the little bridge that crosses the stream
and the dead-line on the west side. The ground on each side
of this stream is a gently sloping hillside. Adjoining the creek
on the north side, there is about two acres of wet, boggy,
miry, swamp.

The entrances to the prison, two huge gates, are on the
west side. One on each side of the creek and midway be-
tween creek and corner of stockade. There is a small stockade
yard around each gate on the outside. When prisoners are
brought in, or the wagons loaded with rations, they pass
through an outer gate into this yard, the outer gate is then
barred before the gates to the main stockade is opened. This
to prevent prisoners making a sudden rush for an open gate.
The fastenings to these gates are on the outside. Leading
(7)

94

THE SMOKED YANK.

across the prison from each gate there is a street wide enough
to turn a wagon in. There are two or three other streets of
considerable width. Leave out the creek and the two acres
of swamp, the broader streets and the twenty-foot strip be-
tween the dead-line and the stockade, in all at least four acres,
and you have left twelve acres for the prisoners to camp on,
to cook, eat, and sleep on. There were 20,000 prisoners there
when we entered. Twenty thousand on twelve acres. Six-
teen hundred and sixty-six on one acre. Ten to each square
rod. For each man not quite four by seven feet. Before that
stockade was enlarged, there were at least 30,000 prisoners
inside of it, crowded on to those twelve acres. Less than three
by six feet for each man, just enough for all to lie down on at
once, not enough to have buried them all, giving to each a
separate grave. In July, the stockade was enlarged. About
six acres more of ground was taken in on the north side.
Eight acres in all, about six available for use. The prisoners
increased until there were 45,000. They were as thick then
as before. The following table copied from McElroy's story
of Southern Prisons, is a part of the report made by Surgeon
Joseph Jones, who was sent by the Surgeon-General of the
Confederate army to examine Andersonville :

HH
0 <0

n! .

S-4

°"Sfe

<D D

,0 C

c o

^ il)
O >«

| 0 §
B S JS

CO 4J

3 c« n

MONTH AND YEAR.

C Q-"

a

4-J

bJD ^

MH 3

O CT1

bow y

Cj £j

S.S

i. c« W

<h

5

<J «> *^

March, 1864

7 con

7^n C2O

08 7

April, 1864

IO OOO

7/1O C2O

May, 1864.. ,

I C OOO

7^O C2O

AQ ^

Tune, 1864. .

22 2QI

7AO C2O

33 2

July, 1864...

2Q O3O

I I 76 I 2O

AO S

August, 1864.. .

-?2 8OQ

I 1 76 I 2O

THE SMOKED YANK. 95

He gives the number of acres as seventeen at first, and
twenty-seven afterward. He makes no deductions for dead-
line, streets, or swamp, and he gives what he calls the " mean
strength of prisoners." The size of the pen was as I have
stated, also the number of prisoners there. There could be no
mistake on these points because the prison was measured by
different men, and the prisoners were counted daily. But take
the rebel figures and you have less than five by seven feet for
each man in June, and but a fraction over in August.

CHAPTER XII.

" ANSWER AT ROLL CALL, DRAW RATIONS, AND FIGHT LICE "—
SCENES AT THE DEAD-LINE.

The prisoners who were first turned into Andersonville in
February 1864, were from Belle Isle. These found the ground
covered with underbrush, stumps, and limbs of trees that
had been used in making the stockade, and trees that were not
large enough to make stockade logs. It was comparatively
easy for these men to provide themselves with shelter. Some
built huts two or three feet high on the sides with gable roof;
others made dug-outs, by digging cellars and putting roofs
over. The roofs were all made of brush woven together with
a thatching of pine leaves on the outside. Others made neat
little houses by bending poles so that both ends would stick in
the ground, forming a frame like that of a cover to an emi-
grant wagon. These frames were thatched over the sides
and top and one end. Those who came later, when wood and
brush were not so plentiful, had two forks, a pole and blankets
or pieces of tent-cloth stretched over, and thousands, who
came as the Cahaba prisoners did, long after every limb and
stump and pine leaf had either been consumed or had an owner,
had no shelter whatever. These marked out their six by
seven feet, for two, by ditching around it and raising the sur-
face so that the wash from higher ground would not flow over
it; and there most of them died. But few of the Cahaba prison-

THE SMOKED TANK. 97

ers had blankets, fewer had anything in the shape of cooking
utensils. Neither my bunk-mate, Cook, nor myself had any-
thing except the ragged clothes we wore.

On the first morning, it was the second day of May, the
sun rose scorching hot. I went to the tent of the boy who
had loaned us the skillet, and asked to borrow a cup so that I
could go and get some water. I said to him, " How are we to
live? What are we to do, who have no shelter?" "Live!
Do!" said he, "Why, all you have to do is to answer at roll-
call, draw your rations, and fight lice. If you want to live,
do n't go near the dead-line." I soon found out that he had
summed up the daily life of the average prisoner in Ander-
sonville.

With the borrowed cup I went for water. We had been
warned to keep away from the dead-line. To cross it — even
to get hand, or foot, or head, a hair's breadth over — was in-
stant death. The watchful guards, with unerring aim sent a
bullet through every prisoner who by accident or otherwise
trespassed on this line. They gave no warning, and I never
knew of a shot being fired that did not kill a man. It was
said that a thirty days' furlough was the reward for killing a
prisoner at the dead-line. To get clean water for drinking or
cooking, it was necessary to go near the dead-line where the
stream came in. Many men were shot for merely reaching
under the dead-line to get a canteen or cup of clean water.
On that first morning, I stood within a few feet of one who
was filling his can safely inside of the dead-line, when some
others, struggling for a place to get water, accidently pushed
him so that he fell with his head under the pole. That instant
his brains and blood went floating down the stream, and an-
other rebel guard received the coveted furlough.

98 THE SMOKED TANK.

Another time, I saw some starving men with long willow
or cane poles, standing by the dead-line trying to kill for food,
swallows that had built their mud nests in the cracks of the
stockade, and in the twilight were skimming back and forth
as swallows will. One poor, lean, hungry boy knocked a
swallow down and reached a fraction too far in his effort to
secure it. His spirit went home to Him who watches the
sparrows when they fall, and another son of chivalry went
home on a furlough. Such scenes were common. These
shocked me more than others because I stood near by.

CHAPTER XIII.

EXTRA RATIONS FLANKING-OUT COOKED RATIONS THE

HUCKSTER'S CRY, AND THE PEDDLER'S CALL — THE PLY-
MOUTH PILGRIMS DEAD YANKEES BECOME ARTICLES OF

MERCHANDISE 1 BUY A CORPSE AND TASTE PURE AIR —

REPEATING.

For thirty successive nights after we entered this pen, it
rained hard every night. The days were scorching hot.
The rain soaked us at night. The sun blistered by day. The
nights were cold — at least they seemed cold. Food is the fuel
that warms the body. We had not sufficient food, and, there-
fore, we were colder at night than well-fed men would have
been. The cold made us hungry, and hunger in turn made
us cold.

Very few men were turned into Andersonville who lived
very long without in some way securing more than the com-
mon ration to eat. For the first two or three weeks I lived,
or rather slowly starved on the common ration. I weighed
about 160 pounds when I entered the place. A few weeks
after, my thumb and finger would meet around the largest
part of my arm over the shirt and jacket sleeves. Every day
while suffering from hunger, I would resolve and re-resolve
that when I got my ration, I would divide it into three parts,
be they ever so small, and eat at morning, noon, and night. I
never could do it. Every time the ration came, I devoured it
all, and all was not enough.

ioo THE SMOKED YANK.

The wood that was issued with the rations, was ob-
tained by letting a few men from each detachment go to the
woods under guard and bring in what they could carry on
their backs. One man was allowed to go each day from each
division of ninety. What he could carry in was divided so
much to each mess of ten. The cooking was done by messes,
and the food when cooked was carefully divided into as many
little piles as there were hungry men in the mess. Then one
man would turn his back, and another pointing to a ration
would say, "Who shall have this?" The man whose back
was turned, sometimes he was blind-folded also, would call a
name. As each man's name was called, he would step up
and take his share . It always seemed to me that the smallest
pile in the lot fell to me.

Going out after wood was a coveted task. Only the
strongest were chosen to go. When a prisoner could man-
age to get out with those who were selected to carry wood
without being specially detailed from any division, it was called
"flanking out."

The flanker kept for himself all that he could carry in.
Lynn and myself soon learned the flanking game, and we soon
managed to get enough pine boughs and limbs of trees to
build quite a little house. Thomas Davidson, who had suc-
ceeded in eluding all searchers and carried into Andersonville
$80 or $90 in greenbacks, joined Lynn and myself in making
our shelter. When we had it finished and nicely thatched all
over with pine boughs, and more pine boughs to sleep on, and
a wide blanket which Davidson bought, to sleep under at
night, we were living in the lap of luxury, as compared with
those who were compelled to lie at night on the bare ground
in the pelting rain, shivering and aching with the cold, and to

THE SMOKED TANK. IOI

endure without shade or shelter, the scorching sun at noon-
day.

We had been there but two or three weeks when, instead
of raw meal and meat, our rations were brought in cooked.
Then there was no more flanking out, because there was no
further use, that is no absolute necessity for wood. Those
who were brought in after that without money or blankets,
fared even worse than we, for there was no way for them to
get any shelter. Neither must it be understood that many
of the Cahaba prisoners were as fortunate as myself and Cook.

The cooked rations were worse in many respects than
the raw. When our meal and meat, or sometimes beans and
molasses, or rice in place of the meat, came to us raw, we
could cook it in various ways. We could make a stew with
meal dumplings, or a soup of the beans. Or we could make
bread or cakes of the meal, as we saw fit. Out of so little
variety in food, skillful cooking could make many different
dishes. When the cooked rations came, they were always
the same. The meal was cooked in large pans for bread, or
boiled into mush, and the meat always boiled. At the cook-
house, usually strong bacon, sometimes beef, was put into
great cauldrons and boiled. No pains were taken to clean it;
then to save salt, the filthy slop from which the meat was
taken, was used in mixing the meal. The meal was coarse
and not sifted. When this cooking was done, the great, square
loaves of corn-bread (they were about two by four feet, and
four inches thick) were piled on wagons, the meat piled on
the bread, and hauled into the prison. The beef brought in
was always more or less tainted. The bacon was always
strong. When mush was made and brought in in barrels,
it was often sour. The result of eating this coarse bread,

102 THE SMOKED TANK.

bran and all, and the greasy meat, was first to bring on
diarrhoea. Weakened by this, the stomach soon became
nauseated and refused the food. When the food made a
man sick, and being sick, he could not eat the only food there
was, starvation began.

Thousands taken in this way, lived but a few weeks.
Those who recovered from the diarrhoea had next to battle
with the scurvy. The scurvy could neither be prevented nor
cured without vegetables,' such as onions, and potatoes, cab-
bages, and melons. These, however, could only be had for
money, and at a high price. And in this, was the worst part
of this awful life; men were starving, actually dying by hun-
dreds every day for want of food, and all day long resounded
in their ears the cries of hucksters vending their goods from
stands, such as you will see at country fairs.

" Walk up, gentlemen ! Walk up, and get your nice,
warm dinner! Roast meat and potatoes, wheat bread and
pure coffee ! Walk up, gentlemen ! Walk up, and get your
nice, warm dinner! Here's your cool lemonade, made right
here in the shade, and the best thing in the world for scurvy!
Right this way, gentlemen, for your hot chicken soup! Bean
soup ! Bean soup ! Bean soup, only five cents a dish ! Bean
soup ! Bean soup ! Ham and eggs ! Ham and eggs ! Right
this way for your ham and eggs with johnny-cake, and
huckleberry pie for desert! Right this way, and get your
choice dinner for a dollar!"

The larger huckster stands were located on the three or
four principal streets of the prison, but smaller stands and
peddlers could be seen everywhere, and no starving prisoner,
though he had the will power to keep his eyes from feasting
on what his stomach craved, but his hands dared not touch,

THE SMOKED YANK. IO3

could keep the peddler's cry and the huckster's call from
sounding in his ears all day long, and far into the night.

Why, you ask, were not these poor, starving prisoners,
relieved by those who had this provision to sell? Why are
there out of prisons everywhere, and especially in all great
cities, the poor, the hungry, and the ragged, the sick, the
lame and the blind, who are passed daily without relief, and
without compassion by fellow-men rolling in wealth and de-
bauched by luxury? Andersonville was a world condensed
with the forms and restraints of society left out.

Let a ship sink in sight of the shore, and a hundred help-
less men who cannot swim be thrown into the sea — ten of
them seize planks that will keep them from sinking. Does
any man give his plank to one of the ninety who is about to
go down? The prisoner turned into Andersonville with
nothing, and depending wholly on his keepers for support,
was as helpless and almost as sure to perish as the wrecked
man without a plank in the sea. A blanket to cover him, a
few boughs, out of which to form a shelter, a few dollars to
dole out sparingly for daily wants, were to him as precious
as the life-preserver is to the wrecked mariner at sea.

Friends worked together and helped each other. Old
comrades formed into messes and in a measure, made com-
mon store, but the general rule was, every man for himself.

There were men there well-dressed, even to dandyism,
who sported watch and chain, had rolls of money and spent
dollars at a meal. These could have given but did not, just
as millionaires who have more than they can ever possibly
consume, think only of gain, and seldom give and grudging-
ly, to the struggling poor. Begging was almost as rare as
giving. The poor fellows seemed to realize that as a rule,

io4

THE SMOKED TANK.

to part with even a morsel of food was to lessen their chances
for life. Tobacco was not considered one of the necessaries,
and to ask a chew or pipe of tobacco was not considered
begging, and when asked was seldom refused by those who
had it in sight.

Probably half the prisoners had resources other than the
daily ration. There were hucksters, and peddlers, bakers,
tailors, even jewelers, gamblers of every kind, chuck-luck,
faro, poker, wheel of fortune, tricks and games of every
variety were played and carried on openly and publicly. The
rattle of dice, the whirring of wheels, and the cries to attract
the crowd, chimed in with the huckster's call and peddler's
cry to make the din and racket of the streets. All of these
men thus engaged had something besides the daily ration.

During the first few weeks, these things were not so
extensively carried on. The prisoners who first entered
Andersonville were from Belle Island and other prisons, and
were poor, but from the time I got there, there were almost
daily accessions of prisoners, fresh from the battle fields
around Richmond, and from the armies of the west. These,
especially those from around Richmond, were not searched
and robbed as we had been, and as most prisoners taken from
the west were. They came in, as we used to say, with flying
colors, bringing blankets, knapsacks, canteens, and cooking
utensils, money and jewelry.

A brigade, several regiments and a battery, in all about
3,000 men, taken at Plymouth, N. C., had received their vet-
eran bounty and new clothes, with which to go home on vet-
eran furlough, but a few days before their capture. They
were taken on conditional surrender, and one of the conditions
was, that private property was to be respected. They came

THE SMOKED YANK. It>s

in about the middle of May, with their entire camp outfit, tents
and all, and must have had an average of hundreds of dollars
in money to the man. Previous to their arrival, hucksters
handled but small stocks of tobacco, meal, beans, rice, potatoes,
wood, etc., and the peddler's cry usually was, " Who wants to
trade rice for beans!" or, "a pone of bread for a dish of
soup!" or, "a ration of meat for a ration of meal!" and the
gambling was all on a small scale. Soon after the arrival of
the Plymouth prisoners, bedlam was indeed let loose. Ped-
dlers and hucksters multiplied, gamblers and tricksters in-
creased, and new kinds of business sprung up.

The hucksters obtained supplies, in part from the prison
suttler, who had a store in the prison under the protection of
the rebels in command, and in part from those of the prison-
ers who went outside to carry out the sick to the hospital, or
the dead to the dead-house, and who managed to carry on
trade with the rebels on the outside, and smuggle in goods.
The officers, too, who came in once a day, one or two to
each division, to call the roll of the prisoners, were nearly
all smugglers, and brought in tobacco, eggs, and other articles
that they could conceal about their person, to trade and sell to
the prisoners.

The profits in smuggled goods was so much greater than
on those bought at wholesale from the prison suttler, that a
separate branch of trade sprung up, which was selling chances
to go outside. For instance, a sick man would go, or get his
friends to carry him out to sick-call. If, on being examined
by the rebel physician, he was ticketed for the hospital, and, if
he could not walk, as was usually the case, there would be a
chance for two other prisoners to go under guard and carry
the sick man on a stretcher to the hospital. This chance to go

io6 THE SMOKED TANK.

out belonged to the companions who had assisted him to sick-
call. They would often sell it to others engaged in the smug-
gling business, and the smuggler buying such a chance, would
often realize a handsome profit on goods that he could buy on
the outside of the guards and other traders, and bring in con-
cealed in his clothes, or in the pine boughs, or a hollow log,
which he would be allowed to carry in.

In this way, the dead soon became articles of merchan-
dise, and were bought and sold. The number that died in
camp daily, especially in July and August, was from 50 to
1 20, according to the state of the weather. After a stormy
day and night, there would be many more dead than during
the same number of hours of fair weather. The dead were
carried to the gate every morning, and laid in a line commenc-
ing at the dead-line and reaching back into the prison. Each
corpse was carried to the dead-house on a stretcher by two
prisoners guarded by a rebel soldier. The corpse of a pris-
oner belonged to his bed-f ello w, if he had one, if not, to his
mess-mates, who had the disposal of the chances (two of them)
to go with the stretcher to the dead-house. Smugglers bought
these chances, also.

The first man brought to the dead-line in the morning,
would be taken out first, and they would be taken two or three
at a time, according to the number of guards detailed. The
first smugglers out in the morning would have the best chance
to trade, and so the chance to carry out the first corpse was
worth more, and sold for more, than the chance to go out with
one that would not be reached until later. It soon became the
custom for the price of a corpse to be written on a piece of
paper and pinned to the rags of the corpse. The first dozen
or so, would be marked as high, sometimes, as three dollars

THE SMOKED TANK. 107

each, and if there were eighty or a hundred, in the row of
corpses, as low as fifty cents would buy some of the last. If
you paid three dollars for a corpse, you would get out early
while trade was brisk, and before the best bargains were gone.
If you paid fifty cents for a corpse, you had to sit by it per-
haps until afternoon, and watch it to keep it from- being stolen,
and when it did come your turn to go, the stench of your
corpse would make you sick, and chances for trade would be
slim.

I saw many fights over the disputed ownership of dead
bodies. I remember one in particular. A poor, starved crea-
ture who seemed to have no friend, had for a long time been
in the habit of coming at night and lying down just outside of
my shanty, close up to the side where I slept. When he thus
lay down, there would be nothing between us but a thin
thatching of pine leaves. He was literally alive with vermin,
and would no sooner lay down than I would be awakened by
the lice crawling over my face, and would get up and drag
the poor fellow away, sometimes twice in one night. One
morning after I had thus dragged him away, I saw a bloody
fight going on between two men, and going to the spot, found
that they were fighting because each claimed to be the next
friend, and, therefore, the owner of the body of the man who
had died where I had left him. I often heard it said that
death was sometimes assisted by the would-be mourners, that
the corpse might reach the dead-line among the first in the
morning.

Great God! Think of it. Men brought so low by the
thousand, systematically and purposely too, and by their own
countrymen, civilized, christianized, chivalrous countrymen,
that to save life, to get food and wood, where food and wood

io8 THE SMOKED TANK.

were plenty, they will barter and sell, and fight over the
dead bodies of their friends. What are Heathen?

I bought a chance once to go out with a dead body. I
had to carry the end of a stretcher on which the head lay,
because the man at the other end had been hungry so much
that he was thin and weak. The stretcher was an old gunny-
sack nailed to poles. The sack part was too short. The
feet hung over it at one end and the head at mine. There
had been no tender, loving hand, to close those eyes when the
last breath had gone. They were open wide and glaring.
The head hung over the end of the stretcher and the eyes
glared up at me. They haunted me for weeks. I never
bought another corpse.

Aside from the sickening stench of that corpse, and the
ghostly glaring of those open eyes, how unspeakably delight-
ful were the moments I spent that morning out of the prison.
You enter a conservatory or garden full of freshly blossomed
flowers, and the odors are delicious, but you cannot discern
the perfume of the green grass, and common plants, and trees
of the hills and fields around you, because they are in your
daily air. Neither can you detect the obnoxious odors of' a
room which you entered when the air was pure, and staid in
until it was foul. So I did not know how foul the stench of
the prison was until I went out that morning and tasted fresh
air. The bark of the trees, the leaves, the grass, the decay-
ing wood, the flowers, each had a distinct and easily-dis-
tinguished odor. The common air was fragrant. I drank in
great draughts of it as though it were a new, delicious and
exhilarating beverage, and so it was. But when I re-entered
the pen, the foulness there was just as noticeable as the fra-
grance outside had been, and I was sorry that I had gone at all.

THE SMOKED TANK. 109

Besides the traders and peddlers who earned money with
which to buy extra rations, and those who brought money in,
there were others who received extra rations. For instance,
there was a Yankee sergeant or quartermaster for each de-
tachment who received the provision each day for his detach-
ment and divided it into as many parts as there were divisions
in a detachment. He received three extra rations. Then the
sergeant of each division who received from the detachment
sergeant and distributed to the sergeants of messes, received
two extra rations, and mess sergeants, some of them, received
one. Whether these extra rations were issued in addition to
the rations for the common prisoners or whether they were
taken from and diminished the daily supply for the prison, I
cannot say. My opinion was that the latter was the fact.

Others received extra rations by repeating. At roll-call
each detachment formed in line and a rebel sergeant accom-
panied usually by one or two guards, came in to call the roll.
They called the roll of one division of ninety at a time, and
then counted the men in line to see that the number tallied
with the roll; then passed to the next division, the whole de-
tachment being required to stand in line until the roll of all
the divisions was called. Suppose a man from the ist Division
died during the night, some man from some other division
of the detachment, would slip into the vacant place, stand there
and answer to the dead man's name, and as soon as that
division was counted, slip back to his place and be ready to
answer to his own name in his own division. As there were
as many rations issued each day as there were prisoners at
roll-call each morning, the repeater would get an extra ration.

The rebels knew that something of the kind was going
on, and they tried many schemes to prevent it, but never

IIO THE SMOKED YANK.

wholly succeeded. Probably one-half of the prisoners at
Andersonville, especially between June ist and September ist,
of 1864, in one way or another of the several ways mentioned,
secured more to eat than was provided for and issued to them
by the authorities. Of this half, a large percentage lived, for
Andersonville was naturally a healthy place. Of the other one-
half who had no extra rations, no aid of any kind, and many
no shelter, nearly the whole died.

I have never met a survivor of Andersonville, whose
daily ration of food during the whole, or at least, the most of
the time he was there, was not in some way supplemented, and
I very much doubt whether there is now a man living who
endured five months of 1864 in Andersonville, with nothing to
live on save what the rebels furnished.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RAIDERS LIMBER JIM THE REGULATORS EXECUTION

OF THE RAIDERS.

The horrors of Andersonville did not result entirely from
the prison system and management planned and authorized by
the rebel authorities and their agents. It is even doubtful
which furnished the most extreme cases of human cruelty and
depravity, the rebels, or the prisoners themselves. When we
first entered the place, we were cautioned to look out for raid-
ers. These were at first a small band of roughs from New
York City, who had been engaged previous to their capture,
in what was called bounty jumping. They were called,
"bounty jumpers." Large bounties, or sums of money were
offered by the state to those who would enlist, and sometimes,
a man who was drafted, would pay a large sum to some other
man to go as his substitute. These fellows, it was said, had
been engaged in enlisting for these state and private bounties,
remaining in the service long enough to get the money, and
then taking the first opportunity to desert and go back and
enlist again in some other place, under another name, and
secure another bounty. They were confined at first at Belle
Island, and there banded together to steal and rob, and there
received the name of raiders. As the number of prisoners
who had anything for robbers to take, increased, the raiders
also grew in numbers and boldness. The accessions to the

JI2 THE SMOKED YANK.

gang, were probably not all bounty jumpers. At first, their
operations were after the sneak-thief order. A haversack, or
a blanket, or clothing would be snatched at night from some
sleeping prisoners. The thief would run and soon be out of
sight among the huts and tents, and pals of the raiders would
put any pursuer off the track. Becoming bolder, they began
to work in parties of five or six armed with clubs, and they
would enter at night the sleeping place or tent of the victims
marked in the daytime, and forcibly take whatever suited their
fancy, mercilessly clubbing, sometimes killing any unfortunate
man who dared resist. And so they went from bad to worse.
The Ninetys' organized to defend each other against the raid-
ers, and then the raiders banded together and strengthened
their forces. If a party of raiders, or an individual raider
made an attempt to rob that led to the alarm of a Ninety, and
could not escape with the plunder, a shrill blast from the
whistle which each carried would bring others to the rescue ; a
bloody fight with knives and clubs would ensue, and almost
always the raiders would be victorious, for they were a well-
fed band of strong, desperate men, practiced and skilled in
such warfare, and were under leaders whom they obeyed.
A few such men attacking suddenly in the night could usually
get away with their plunder before the surprised friends of
the parties being robbed could gather in sufficient numbers to
successfully resist.

After the Plymouth prisoners came in, and money became
plenty, the raiders became high-toned and did not stop to med-
dle with anything of less value than watches, jewelry, and
money. They carried things with a high hand; the men en-
gaged in trade, and others known to have money, were their
chosen victims, The leaders even grew so bold as to go

THE SMOKED TANK. 113

around in broad daylight and demand of the leading hucksters
money, in return for which they would grant the hucksters
exemption from a raid for so long a time. Those who would
not pay were spotted, as it was called, and soon paid a visit
that left them penniless, and served as an example to terrify
the rest.

It soon became evident that murders were being com-
mitted. Men who had money or other valuables, would dis-
appear, and their friends having no reason to believe they had
made their escape, could find no trace of them. Suspicion
pointed to the raiders, but there was no proof. Finally the
raids became so common, the levying of blackmail so frequent
and notorious, and so many men were missed whom it was
supposed were murdered, that the whole prison began to be
aroused, and the question of a general organization to estab-
lish rules and put down the raiders, was frequently discussed.
There seemed to be no one who dared to lead off in such a
movement. The belief was universal that any man who dared
to take the initiative, would be spotted and surely murdered
by the raiders. Finally the raiders themselves aroused the
very man who, of all others there, was best calculated to lead in
breaking their power. This man was known as "Limber
Jim."

Limber Jim was one of the Cahaba prisoners. He was
a tall, slim, wiry man, good looking, good hearted, full of
energy, a lover of fun, and was at Cahaba, as at Anderson-
ville, the best known and most popular man in the prison.
He had, it was said, traveled with a circus before the war,
and it is very likely that as clown or actor in a circus he ac-
quired not only his nickname, Limber Jim, but also the
inexhaustible fund of anecdote and glibness of tongue that

n4 THE SMOKED TANK.

enabled him to be so entertaining and rendered him so well
known and so popular. Soon after we entered Anderson-
ville "Limber," as we called him for short, invented "root
beer." He obtained in some way a large barrel, filled it with
water, sorghum, molasses, and corn meal. This mixture soon
worked and acquired a sourish, sharp taste, similar to, but not
nearly so pleasant as the taste of old-fashioned metheglin,
made of honey and water.

The sassafras tree abounds in that portion of Georgia, and
Limber had obtained, by digging them from the ground in
the prison, a lot of sassafras roots. These he boiled, and
with the tea, flavored his beer and called it "root beer."
Mounted on his beer barrel, or on a box, Limber would draw
a crowd by telling jokes or stories, or by singing a song, and
then he would expatiate on the health-giving, disease-curing
properties of his " root beer." It was, according to his talk,
a panacea for all the ills that prison life was heir to. It was
good for scurvy, and that was the disease that scourged us
most. When the Plymouth men came in Limber got rich.
He sold hundreds of barrels of beer at 5 cents a glass that
cost less than that many cents per gallon. Then he went
into trade generally, and besides beer kept everything
to sell that could be obtained. I have heard that he won
money at poker, and ran a faro bank with great success. I
did not see him do either. I do know that he acquired a
large amount of money — several thousand dollars. He
secured for his mess a large tent that would hold twelve or
fifteen men, pitched it on the South side, where the raiders
were mostly congregated, had all of his mess-mates armed
with knives and clubs, and had two of the largest and
strongest men of the whole prison employed to stand guard

THE SMOKED TANK. 115

over this tent at night. Here Limber and his guards and
friends lived like kings.

At first the raiders let Limber alone, probably because
he was such a favorite and had so many friends. Afterward
they were kept off by his giant guards.

One evening, however, Limber went down to the creek
alone, and three of the boldest of the raiders saw him. This
was the opportunity that they long had sought, but a sad day
for them was the day they tackled Limber Jim. One big
burly Irishman caught him from behind, put an arm around
his neck, under his chin, drew him back and held him nearly
choked, while the others searched his clothes.

The day after the robbery of Limber Jim a plan for an
organization was agreed upon by the leading men throughout
the prison. The rebel authorities were consulted and per-
suaded to co-operate. A thousand picked men, called regu-
lators, were got together, duly officered, armed with clubs
and drilled, and war on the raiders was openly and formally
declared. A police justice was elected and police headquar-
ters established. Notice was given throughout the camp,
inviting every prisoner who could identify and furnish proof
against a raider to report at police headquarters. The well-
known and leading raiders were at once arrested by the
regulators, Limber Jim acting as commander, and taken
outside and there held in irons under strong guard. When
all that could be identified were thus taken out a jury of the
sergeants of the detachments was selected to hear and take
testimony against them. Six of them were, by this jury,
indicted for murder in the first degree, and the bodies of the
murdered victims were found buried deep in the ground,
under the tents of the leading raiders. These six were duly

u6 THE SMOKED YANK.

tried by a jury empanneled for the purpose. They were
confronted with the witnesses against them, permitted to
bring witnesses in their defense, and allowed the benefit of
counsel. In fact, they were granted every right and privilege
guaranteed to a citizen of the United States by the constitu-
tion. They were all found guilty by the jury, before whom
they were charged, and were duly sentenced to be hung.

For all the rest who were found guilty of crimes of lesser
degrees than murder, for robbery, theft and the like, there
seemed to be no better method of punishment, so they
were sentenced to "run the gauntlet." That is, all the pris-
oners who had been robbed, or clubbed, or raided, or other-
wise maltreated by the raiders, were permitted to form a line
on each side of the street leading into the prison from the
gate. The raiders were turned into the prison, one at a time,
and to pass between these two lines of men, standing there,
waiting for revenge, was " to run the gauntlet."

Had the use of clubs been allowed no raider could have
gone through alive. Blows and kicks were unmercifully
administered, and many barely escaped with life. As a rule,
those who had been guilty of the most and the worst crimes
received the hardest drubbing, for, first one and then another
of the men in line would make his charge, stating what the
raider had done, and those against whom the most charges
were made fared the worst.

When the time came for the execution of the six men
convicted of murder, a regular scaffold was erected inside the
prison. It was reported that the raiders had re-organized,
and would make a desperate effort to rescue their leaders and
companions at the scaffold, when they were brought in to
be hung. Great precautions were taken to prevent the
success of any such attempt, should it be made.

THE SMOKED TANK. 117

The hour came. The thousand regulators were formed
in a hollow square. The six doomed raiders, hand-cuffed and
shackled, were marched in between a strong guard of rebel
soldiers. They were conducted into the space left near the
scaffold, and there turned over to the hangmen, Limber Jim
being chief hangman, and then the guards went out, for the
rebel authorities had decided to permit, but not to take any
part in the execution of these raiders. The convicts were all
Catholics, and at their request a priest was there to administer
the sacrament, and perform the last rites of their religion.

The hand-cuffs and shackles are removed and the six
doomed men kneel with their priest to pray. All is still as
death, for death is hovering over the scene. Suddenly one of
them stands on his feet, and giving the shrill, rallying cry of
the raiders, with a spring like that of a tiger on its prey, he leaps
right into the teeth of the regulators, seizes a club, and in less
time than I can tell it, clears the whole solid mass of regu-
lators, and leaps and bounds away through the camp.

What a scene ! The whole 30,000 prisoners are looking
on, thousands crowded close around the regulators, and when
that raider breaks away every looker-on supposes that the
dreaded raiders have made the threatened attempt to rescue, and
every one starts at once to get away from the desperate struggle
that is expected to follow. The result is, that the backward
movement takes the crowd like a great wave, and they tumble
over tents, into holes, off from buckets, boxes, and whatever
could be secured to stand on, tramping on each other, yelling,
cursing, and fighting as they go. It was a terrible panic, and
many were sorely bruised, and some had arms, some legs
broken in their falls.

In the meantime the fleeing raider is hotly pursued.

ng THE SMOKED TANK.

He dashes into tents, and out by lifting up the edge, dodges
around shanties, and tries in vain to elude the sleuth-hounds
on his track. He is caught! A mass of regulators gather
around and form a hollow square, in the center of which,
struggling still, he is carried back. There is no more waiting
for religious ceremony. Again, all is still. The raiders beg
and plead for mercy. Their hands are pinioned behind them,
the black cowls drawn over their heads, and they are led each
by a hangman up the steps, on to the scaffold. There, stand-
ing in a row, the loops pass over their heads, the hangman's
knots are adjusted, and the hangmen step down. Limber
Jim seizes an ax, drives out the wedge that supports the drop,
and five of the murderers are dangling in the air.

The sixth, the same big burly Irishman that mugged
Limber Jim, proved too heavy for his rope, and as it broke,
he fell through the scaffold to the ground, stunned and
bruised, but not killed. Water is dashed into his face and he
revives and pleads again for mercy. " Surely, yiz have not
the heart to hang a man twice," he is heard to say.

With awful coolness, Limber Jim lifts him up, assists him
back up the steps of the scaffold, and there, standing on the
outer beam, adjusts the noose of the new rope, lifts the man
up off his feet and drops him, to writhe, and struggle, and
twitch, beside his writhing, struggling, twitching companions,
until all are dead, dead, dead!

The raiders raided no more. From this time on there was
a police commisioner, or justice, and regularly organized
police, and all prisoners charged with stealing, or violating
any of the prison rules were, if convicted, severely punished.
Sometimes they were sentenced to do fatigue duty, such as
cleaning streets, etc., but the usual punishment was to stretch

THE SMOKED TANK. ng

the offender over a barrel, and whip him on the bare back
with a cat-o'-nine tails, the number of lashes given him being
in proportion to the grade of the crime. A sanitary organiza-
tion was also perfected to take in charge the general condition
of the prison, see to the cleaning of streets, compel the deposit
of urine and excrement at the sink, and enforce personal
cleanliness.

The prisoners employed on the police and sanitary forces
each received extra rations; subordinates one, officers two, or
more, according to the grade of office. Whether these extra
rations were taken out of the daily supply for the prison, thus di-
minishing the quantity issued to the common herd, or whether
they were furnished in addition to the daily allowance for the
camp, I cannot now say, though it would be interesting to
know. One thing is certain. The fact that all service ren-
dered was paid for in extra rations was of itself proof that the
common ration was not sufficient. Otherwise, who would
have labored for an extra ration? I verily believe that a man
of, or about the average size, and of ordinary habit as to
consumption of food, could not have lived three months with
nothing to eat besides the common ration.

CHAPTER XV.

ESCAPES BLOOD-HOUNDS TORTURES DIGGING TUNNELS

A BENEDICT ARNOLD SHOOTING A CRIPPLE THE HOS-
PITAL SICK-CALL A SMALL-POX SCARE.

Escape was almost impossible. A few succeeded in get-
ing away, but in nearly every instance they were brought
back. A pack of blood-hounds was kept, and every day, or
oftener, a squad of cavalry accompanied by these dogs, would
make a circle around the prison a half mile or more away,
and the hounds were so trained that they would take the track
and go in pursuit of any prisoner who had succeeded in pass-
ing the circle. Those captured were often terribly bitten and
mangled by the dogs, and were subjected to tortures upon their
return — such as hanging by the thumbs, sitting in the stocks,
and working on the chain-gang. Hanging by the thumbs,
was to be stretched up by a rope fastened around each thumb
until no weight remained on the ground ; the toes being allowed
to merely touch to prevent the body swinging around, which
would cause sickness and vomiting. The cries of the poor
fellows subjected to these tortures, were pitiful. They prayed
and begged to be shot. Suppose you were to be taken to a
wooden wall, seated on the ground, your feet made to project
through two holes as high up as they would reach, and your
hands through two other holes higher up, and your feet and
hands thus placed securely fastened, you would be in the stocks.

THE SMOKED TANK. 121

In the chain gang, one ankle of each man was fastend by
an iron shackle and chained to an immense cannon ball, perhaps
a forty-pounder. When the gang moved from place to place
to and from their work, or to the sink as often as any member
had to go, each member had to drag a separate ball with one
leg, and help to drag the large one with the other. Thus
shackled, they ate, slept, and worked. Every man who at-
tempted to escape had to pass in turn through these three
forms of torture.

I tried many plans for escape. In fact, there was not
a day from the time I was made prisoner that I was not
looking for a chance to get away, or working out some
scheme. I helped to dig one tunnel. We begun it in a
hut located near the dead-line. Carried the dirt away in sacks
at night and put it in the creek. The man who worked at
the end of the tunnel lay on his belly or back and dug into
the tough, hard red clay until he had loosened a small sack
full. He would then pass the sack to a man behind him who
would pass it to another, and so on back. When the sack
reached the top of the ground, men lying on the ground for
the purpose, shoved it from one to another, until it was far
enough from the over-looking guard for a man to walk away
with it and not be noticed. Progress was slow on account of
the extreme hardness of the clay, but we toiled on night after
night until we had a tunnel far outside of the stockade. We
were waiting for a night dark enough to enable us to make
an opening on the outside and get out unseen, when our tun-
nel shared the fate of most tunnels that were tried. Some poor
famishing creature, who had seen us at work, in the hope of
getting an extra ration as a reward, betrayed us, and in came
an officer and took out all that were found in the tunnel, or in

122 THE SMOKED TANK.

the tent from which it started, and put them through the
tortures prepared for those who attempted to escape. Luck-
ily, I was not at the tunnel at the time.

Few tunnels were successfully completed, because it was
hardly possible, when men were so crowded together, to carry
them on without many not engaged in the work finding it out,
and as it was known that old Wirz would reward the informer,
there was always some poor devil, either naturally mean
enough, or so distracted by want and misery, that for the sake
of the reward he would prove traitor to his friends.

One night there was a tremendous rain-storm, and the
water in the creek rose so high that it washed out several feet
of stockade at the lower side. Had this been generally
known a general break would have been made, but only a
few of those quartered near by knew of it, and some of them
escaped by swimming out in the flood. The rebels soon
discovered the break, and had an armed force around the
place on the outside.

This incident suggested to some of us the possibility
of making an organized effort to liberate the entire body
of prisoners. As before stated, the stockade was made
of logs, set close together, the lower ends about five feet
in the ground. Seeing the place where the washout occurred,
suggested the idea of tunneling to the stockade, and
then excavating the dirt from the inside, down to, and partly
under the bottom of the logs, and for several feet along the
camp side, leaving only enough of the top earth to hold itself
up and conceal the work. The clay, being hard and tough
nearly to the surface, made this possible. We planned to
remove the earth in this way from at least twelve or fifteen
feet of the front of the stockade, and we had long poles

THE SMOKED YANK. 123

prepared, intending, when all was ready, to put the poles
against the top of stockade logs, and push them over. The
dirt all being removed from in front of the logs at the bottom,
this was a perfectly practical scheme.

While the excavating was going on we organized a body
of picked men; had officers chosen for each company and
regiment, and a general, and aids. In short, we organized a
small army of the strongest and most resolute men. Our
intention was to make a sudden rally, surprise and capture
all the guards, arm a party of men with the captured guns,
and let them make a forced march to Americus, only twelve
miles away, and capture the arms and munitions of war stored
n the arsenal there. With these we could arm and equip
every able-bodied man in the prison. We had planned also
to cut the telegraph wires, and to take prisoner every man,
woman and child in the neighborhood. Also, to send a small
body of men out, who were to provide themselves with horses
and arms as they went, and force their way to Sherman's
army with all possible speed. These men were to go in a
body, if possible, and if not, scatter, and each man go it alone.
Some, we thought, would surely get through, for Sherman
was then at home in Georgia. The main body of the
prisoners, with the arms secured at Americus, were to march
on to Macon, and liberate the officers who were in prison
there, if possible. If the officers were liberated further
movements were to be guided by them. If they were moved
before our forces could surround the place there, we would
take the town and fortify ourselves in it, and hold every
inhabitant of the place, and all we could find and bring in, as
hostages, so that if a rebel army, large enough to overpower
us, should come, we would hold them at bay until succor

124 THE SMOKED YANK.

from Sherman should arrive, by putting their own people in
front of us, and compelling our enemies to kill their own
friends or let us alone.

It was a well-laid scheme, and it might have succeeded
had not a Benedict Arnold sprung up at the proper time, to
betray it for reward. One fine morning we were awakened by
the sound of cannon, and the whistling of grape and canister
close^tover our heads; at the same time the entire force of
guards were seen forming on commanding portions around
the prison. Then a company of rebels marched in and went
to the exact spot we had excavated, destroyed our works, and
posted notices, stating that the plot in all its details was
known, and that the first sign of an unusual movement of
prisoners would be the signal for firing the cannon that were
trained on the camp and loaded with grape and cannister.
At the same time the rebels, to prevent another attempt of
the same kind, fastened timbers across the logs of the stock-
ade, near the top, and put strong braces against the timbers,
so that the whole stockade was firmly held in place, and could
not be pushed over from the inside, even though the dirt was
removed from the front.

We never knew to a certainty who the traitor was that
betrayed this scheme, but suspicion fastened on a man who
had but one leg, and walked with crutches. He was about
that time, granted a parole of honor and permitted to pass out
and into the prison as he pleased. One day he came inside
and a lot of prisoners gathered around him and charged him
with having been the traitor. He stoutly denied it, but the
prisoners continuing to abuse and threaten him, he attempted
to go outside. There was, at the time, no officer at the gate
to let him out, and he stepped into the space between the

THE SMOKED TANK. 125

dead-line and the gate, saying to the guard above the gate,
that he would stand there until an officer came. The guard
told him to go back inside of the dead-line. The poor crip-
ple, standing there on one foot and one crutch, replied, and
correctly, too : " You know I have a parole to stay outside
when I choose, and there can be no harm in my standing here
until an officer comes to let me out; besides those men threat-
en to kill me, and I am afraid to stay inside the dead-line."

The guard cocked his gun and ordered him to move
back inside the stockade. Looking the guard full in the
face, the man replied: "I don't care how soon I die, shoot,
if you like ! " The words were hardly spoken, when the
guard fired. The ball passed through the man's mustache
and out through the neck, breaking the bone. Poor fellow,
he felt no pain, and another rebel soldier was furloughed for
honorable conduct. God save the mark! All the regulations
and commands in Christendom could not compel a brave and
honorable man to shoot another, a poor cripple, under such
circumstances.

There was a hospital at Andersonville to which sick men
were admitted, and where they ought to have received at least
good treatment and care, for the hospital stewards were paroled
prisoners, and they certainly ought to, and probably did do
the best they could for their suffering comrades. But the
capacity of the hospital was limited and only those, it was said,
who were past curing were taken out. In fact, so few of those
who were taken there ever came back, that it came to be the
prevailing idea that to go to the hospital was to be carried
alive to your grave, and but few sick prisoners, unless taken
by force, would go there. There was a sick-call too every
morning at which time the sick could go into a smaller pen
(9)

I26 THE SMOKED TANK.

just outside the south gate where a number of rebel sur-
geons prescribed for the sick. The prevailing complaints
were scurvy, diarrhrea, and malarial and other fevers. A little
vinegar and sulphur was doled out to the scurvy patients;
what the rest received, I do not know. I do know that
I had the scurvy bad and that the stuff I got at sick-call
did me no good, but that when I got money and bought and
ate a few raw potatoes and some other wholesome food, I was
quickly cured.

There was at one time, a small-pox scare. Whether
there were cases in the prison, I do not now remember. At
any rate, the rebel physicians received orders to vaccinate
every prisoner who could not show a fresh scar. We were
formed in line, and those who could not show a fresh scar,
were vaccinated whether they wanted to be or not. I had
been vaccinated a year before and escaped. Hundreds died
or lost their arms from the effect of the vaccine. Some said it
was poison, or diseased matter purposely used. I do not
think so, but I do think that many of the prisoners who had
the scurvy and other blood disorders, were not in fit condition
to be vaccinated; that because of their condition the sores
made became inflamed, gangrene got into them and proved
fatal. I don't think small-pox could have made any head-way
among the half-starved prisoners; they were too lean.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONDITION OF THE PRISON IN JULY AND AUGUST REBEL,

STATISTICS WHY WE WERE NOT EXCHANGED ANDER-

SONVILLE REVENGED THIS IS A REPUBLIC!

The miseries of Andersonville during the rainy months of
May and June for those who had little or no shelter, who,
drenched by the cold pelting rain shivered all night, and had
to endure the blistering intolerable heat of a tropical sun by
day, were indescribable. How shall I convey to you an idea
of the increased suffering in July and August, when the rains
which before washed the camp and carried off the filth, ceased;
when there were more men to the square rod, when the
rations were poorer in kind, and less in quantity, when the
creek that furnished water had diminished in volume and had
been polluted by all manner of filth from the camps of the
guards and the prison cook-houses above; when the accomoda-
tions at the sink were not sufficient for half of the prisoners,
and more than all, when hunger, and exposure, and disease,
and scurvy, and gangrene, and vermin, and noxious vapors,
and despondency had worked together for months and left
their awful marks upon so many thousands of helpless men?
The mind naturally shrinks from the appalling task. Abler
pens than mine have been engaged upon the subject. Books
have been written, and many letters published describing the
horrors of Andersonville, and yet the half has never, and can

128

THE SMOKED TANK.

never be told. I can add, as it were, but a mite, and all I
shall seek to do, will be to leave in the mind of the reader a
picture of the place such as memory brings to mine.

I give below a table copied from " McElroy's Anderson-
ville," compiled from the official reports made by confederate
authorities. It gives the average number of prisoners during
the months of July and August at a little less than 32,000.
My own recollection, and it is supported by that of many
others, is that there were between 35,000 and 40,000, and that
the death rate was correspondingly larger. It is quite likely
that we were prone to exaggerate — just possible that a rebel
officer would under-rate.

The number of prisoners in the Stockade, the number of deaths each
month, and the daily average, is given as follows :

MONTHS.

Number in
Stockade.

Deaths.

Daily
Average

March

4..7ot

283

April

O <\T7

CQ2

10

May

l8 4X4.

711

27

June

26 3.67

I 2O2

ACt

*Tulv

"U 678

I 7/12

40
c6

August

7T.67.7

7,O76

QQ

September

8,2 1 8

2.7QO

oo

October

4 208

I.CQC

CT

November . ...

T 7CQ

a.8 <;

IO

* In July one in every eighteen died.
In August one in every eleven died.

The greatest number of deaths is reported to have occurred on August 23,
when 127 died, or one man every eleven minutes. The greatest number of
prisoners in the stockade is stated to have been August 8, when there were
33.II4-

What were all these men doing? Not reading, for there
was no Mrs. Gardner with a humane heart and willing hand
in that vicinity. There were no books there except a few
testaments and bibles. In my opinion, the first thing that
would attract the notice of a stranger, was the thousands

THE SMOKED TANK. 129

of men sitting in the sun, nearly naked, picking away at
their clothes; picking off the lice. The place was literally
alive with lice and fleas. Every man who did not get
so sick and weak and discouraged that he had to lie down and
be eaten up by them, made it one of his daily tasks to take off
all his clothes and pick off the lice and fleas. To do this
effectually, you must hold the garment in the warm sun so that
the vermin would crawl out and be seen. So through all the
hottest part of the day, there were thousands and thousands
of men sitting on the ground wholly or partially naked pick-
ing vermin from their old rags or clothes, if they still had
them; thousands were nearly naked when they had all their
clothes on, these were all more or less afflicted with the
scurvy.

Scurvy swells the gums, and in time, rots them so that
the teeth fall out; the feet swell and puff up, especially if the
man is bare-footed, until they are two great puff-balls, resem-
bling a pair of boxing gloves. Grasp one of these puffed feet
with your hand, and your fingers will make dents in the flesh
that will but slowly fill out, as in a piece of rising dough. The
knee joints, too, are favorite points for scurvy. They were
always swollen, like the feet, but black and blue, as though
they had been pounded into one horrible bruise.

Now, picture one of these half-naked, bony, filthy, gaunt
and ghastly skeletons, his eyes sunken, his cheek bones
protruding, his gums all swollen, his elbows and knees
swollen, and black and blue, and his feet two great shapeless
masses of bloated flesh, and picture him sitting on the ground,
as he usually was, with his chin between his knees, and his
hands clasped around them, and you have a specimen of
"Smoked Yank," thousands of whom could always be seen
at a glance.

,3o THE SMOKED YANK.

I have mentioned the swamp. I shrink from the task,
but I must take you there. The privy, or sink, as it was
called for the prison, was as before stated, two lines of poles
supported by forks, one line on each side of the creek. As
the prison filled up, and the accommodations at the sink
became insufficient, the swampy ground had to be used, until,
finally, that whole piece of swamp ground was covered with
one connected mass of human excrement. A moving, seeth-
ing mass, for vermin, worms, and bugs, kept it moving.
Now, take the specimen of "Smoked Yank," as I have
described him. Let him drag his swollen feet along one of
the paths left to walk in, through that seething, squirming
mass, and then, when he finds a place to stoop, his swollen
knees refuse support, he falls over; is too weak to get up or
crawl out, and there he dies. Yes, such scenes were there,
and too common. There were hundreds of such cases.
Would no one help him, you say. Certainly, if asked, or if
the dying man was noticed. But when men became so weak
and low, they were liable to fall over in a swoon, and not be
noticed, especially at night. I have helped carry men out,
who had fallen over in that way, and did not call for help.
They seemed to think their strength would return, and enable
them to get up.

I remember having my attention called one day by most
terrible oaths, coming from a man who lay on the side hill, just
out of the swamp. I went close to him. He seemed to be de-
lirious. He lay there with maggots and worms crawling in and
out of his ears and his nose ; lice all over him ; flies buzzing
around; maggots and worms between his fingers and his toes.
And there he lay, seemingly without strength to move, and
from his mouth there poured the most fearful stream of oaths

THE SMOK&D rANK. 131

I ever heard. It seemed that he blamed President Lincoln
for not arranging an exchange, and on his head the burden
of the oaths fell. He also cursed the Union, cursed the con-
federacy, and cursed God for permitting his condition. He
lay in that condition, cursing and moaning, for several days
before he died. And scenes like that were not uncommon;
there were hundreds, barring the oaths. True, such deaths
were not the rule, for usually, the sick and helpless were
faithfully and tenderly cared for by their friends and
companions, even until death. Those whose friends had
all died, or who had become partly, or wholly, demented,
and got into the habit of wandering around alone, were
the ones that furnished such examples of extreme horrible
misery.

There are in the National Cemetery at Andersonville
14,000 grave-stones.

I was in Andersonville from the 2d day of May until about
the ist of October, 1864. During that time about 12,000 of the
prisoners died, an average of eighty for each day. The direct
cause of this terrible death rate was the crowding of so many
into so small a space, without sufficient food and shelter. A
larger prison, and more, and better food it was in the power
of the confederacy to furnish. As for shelter, the pine forest
that surrounded the prison for miles in every direction, would
have furnished shelter and beds in abundance, had the
prisoners been allowed to go under guard, or on parole, and
help themselves. For the confederates who had control of
rebel prisons there is absolutely no excuse. They were
murderers, cool, calculating, merciless workers of a worse
instrument of torture and death than the bloody days of the
French guillotine, and gibbet, and stretching-rack, ever

I32 THE SMOKED TANK.

furnished. And those in authority at Washington, at the
time, from Lincoln down are not blameless. The rebels
claimed that they were always willing and anxious to
exchange prisoners, but that an exchange could not be agreed
on, because our authorities would not enter into any agree-
ment that did not recognize the freed negroes, who had
enlisted in the Union army as soldiers, and entitled to be
exchanged, the same as white men.

As a matter of pure principle, this was probably correct,
but as a matter of public policy, and of justice and mercy to
the white Union soldiers, who had enlisted before there were
any freed negroes, it was all wrong. If there had been any
considerable number of negro soldiers in the prison suffering
with the others, there would then have been a vital principle
of justice, as well as honor at stake, and the white prisoners
themselves, would have been the last men in the world to
have sacrificed that principle in order to secure their own
liberty and lives. There was not a negro Union soldier in
Andersonville, or in any other prison for any considerable
time. When they were captured they were either sent back
to their old masters, or put to work on rebel fortifications*
And they were not starved, and did not suffer. They were
property in the eyes of the confederates, and as such were
taken care of. Their condition as prisoners was little worse
than it had always been before the war. Stanton, and others
who insisted on that point, might as well have insisted that
every black in the South, whose liberty had been granted
him by the Emancipation Proclamation, and who was detained
by his old master, should be a subject of exchange.

I do not know who was responsible for that fearful
blunder, but a blunder it was, and every prisoner knew and

THE SMOKED YANK. 133

felt it to be such. The men who stood out and refused to
exchange, unless the negroes were recognized by the rebels
as Union soldiers, and exchanged with the rest, did it too,
knowingly and advisedly. The prison authorities once per-
mitted the prisoners to send to Washington three of their
number, chosen for that purpose, who took with them a
petition to the president, asking that an immediate exchange
be agreed to, on the terms proposed by the rebels, and setting
out fully and plainly the suffering that was being endured,
and the loss of life daily occurring. This petition was signed
by thousands, and is probably now on file among the records
of the war. Nothing came of it. There was a political
principle, a cold, naked, clean-cut principle, at stake. There
are many thousand grave-stones at Andersonville which would
not be there, and many thousand widows and orphans in the
land who would not have been widows and orphans so soon,
but for the mistaken zeal and cold-blooded principles of those
authority at that time.

When it was all over, and thousands of the poor
emaciated creatures that survived were sent home, and
scattered through the land, and the truth became known, and
Harper's Weekly, and other illustrated papers, sent out
pictures of the starved heroes, then a storm of indignation
arose which threatened to burst over the heads of the misguided
statesmen, who had refused to exchange. Then something
must be done; Andersonville must be avenged; the storm
must be averted. And something was done; Andersonville
was avenged; poor old Wirz was hung. Poor old Wirz — a
miserable, excitable little foreigner; a cross, I always thought,
or mixture of Dutch, Italian, and French, with nothing Dutch
about him, except his pipe and his brogue ; nothing French,

134 THB SMOKED TANK.

except his nervous excitability; and nothing Italian, except his
low cunning. Wirz wasn't a man of anywhere near the
average ability of our private soldiers. He only wore a
number six hat. He sometimes came into the prison, and
some prisoner, to annoy him, would sing out: "Sour
crout." Wirz would draw his revolver and run in the
direction of the voice. Then some one behind would yell
out: "Go it, Dutchie." Failing to find the first man, he
would run after the second, and so on. I have seen him
charging around in that way, like an escaped lunatic, swearing
in Dutch brogue, for half an hour at a time. It fitly illus-
trated the calibre of the man. Think of such a man, and he
only a captain in rank, being hung to avenge Andersonville.

Wirz had charge of the prison as a kind of provost
marshal. He received and issued the rations, and faithfully
executed his orders. But as to his being in any manner to
blame for the lack of food and shelter, and for the smallness
of the pen, and other such evils, I do n't believe he had any-
thing to do with it. General Winder was the commissary
general of rebel prisons. He established the prison, and knew
all about it. I saw him there with his staff, twice myself.
Wirz was only one of his subordinates, and he was probably
a tool of somebody higher than himself in authority.

I don't suppose Wirz would have been hung had not
specific acts of wanton cruelty to prisoners, not justified by
the prison rules, been proved against him. God knows he
deserved hanging bad enough, but as there were thousands of
men against whom specific acts of cruelty, and of murder,
during the war, could have been proved, who were not tried,
I take it that Wirz was really hung to attract the attention of
the people, and keep some of the blame from falling where it

THE SMOKED TANK. 135

belonged. I read the account of his trial at the time, and it
was my opinion then, that to hang Wirz and let Davis, and all
others who were over him, go free, was a cowardly piece of
business on the part of our Government.

Had a few prominent men, generals and congressmen,
been starved to death in Andersonville, Davis, and all others
in authority, would have been hung. Abraham Lincoln was
painlessly, artistically removed. Booth, who performed the
act, was killed, and all those who could in any way be con-
nected with the planning of it, four in all, were hung, and
justly, too. Thousands of soldiers were removed at Ander-
sonville, and the work was not painlessly nor artistically done.
Wirz, a half-witted foreigner, was hung. Lincoln was
president; the Andersonville victims were all privates. This
is a republic !

CHAPTER XVII.

OUTLINES OF A PICTURE.

Fortunes have been made by exhibiting panoramic pict-
ures of Gettysburg, Shiloh, Sedan, and other noted battle-fields ;
why not exhibit Andersonville ? The loss of life was greater than
at any battle of the war. More men were killed there than
were lost in the Vicksburg campaign including the many that
died from sickness. There are as many grave-stones at
Andersonville, as there are in the National cemetery at Vicks-
burg, where the Union dead are collected from all the battle-
fields and camp-grounds in that vicinity. A fortune awaits the
man who shows Andersonville in any large city as those bat-
tle-fields have been shown. Greater than fortune, renown,
compared to which that of Munkacsy will be nothing, awaits
the artist who will do justice to Andersonville on canvas.

Ambitious painter, come. Bring your brush and your
easel. Fill in with details true to life these outlines, and for-
tune and fame are yours!

Two hill-sides with a creek running between. That's
right. Now, the swamp ground on the north side. There
you have it. Now, the stockade and the dead-line. Guards
leaning over the top of the stockade with a longing-to-go-
home-on-furlough look in their eyes, as they eagerly watch
the dead-line. Have you got the eyes? All right; touch
them up later. The gates next, and then the streets; — that's

THE SMOKED YANK. 137

so, if the shanties and hovels are put in, the streets will be left.
I can 't help you much on the shanties. Every conceivable
form of shelter from sun and rain that Yankee ingenuity could
contrive and make out of logs, limbs, brush, forks, poles, blank-
ets, pine leaves for thatching; some had tents and sun-dried
bricks. Give your fancy play; you will hardly invent one that
could not have been found there. Oh, yes, there are photo-
graphs; didn't think of them, they will help you out. How
close together shall you put them? Well, give the rebels the
benefit of the doubt, if there is any; allow four by six feet to
each man, but out of that, you must save room to pass be-
tween the rows of hovels. Now, we must have on each side
of these streets, booths and board counters on which hucksters
have for sale goods and provisions, meat, bread, pies, cakes,
potatoes, onions, cabbage, and fruit. To use a couplet from
Barbara Freitchie, with a little change, makes them look, —

"Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished Union horde."

Under tents and sheds fronting on these streets, tasty
lunch-counters, and well equipped restaurants with waiters in
attendance. Tobacco and cigar stands, chuck-a-luck and faro
boards, wheel-of-fortune, and gambling tents with men sitting
at cards. On a corner near the center, the sutler's depot con-
taining flour in bags, tobacco in boxes, every variety of sutler
goods in wholesale quantities. Standing in front of all these
boards, counters, and stands, rows of able-bodied and well-
dressed men, eating, smoking, gambling, spending money as
freely and as gaily as at a Northern fair. Behind them, a pack
of moving skeletons in rags, grimy and black from smoke,
feasting their eyes, ready to grab up and fight for any crust of
bread, or bone, or melon rind, or stub of cigar that might be

J38 THE SMOKED YANK.

cast among them. Often I have seen men buy food, and to
see the fun as they called it, cast it among this hungry,
ragged rabble, and watch them scramble for 'A and often fight
over it. Men would buy watermelon by the slice, eat the
meat and throw the rind on the ground to see it snatched
up and ravenously devoured. The rinds and seeds of melons
were eagerly sought for as cures for scurvy.

We must have here and there an oven built of clay, where
pies and bread are baked; barber shops, tailor shops, jew-
elry shops, with lettered signs on all these. Thousands of
naked men sitting where the sun could shine on their clothes,
picking off lice. Thousands more lying on the ground and
in the hovels in the delirium of fever, or dying from hunger
and the ravages of scurvy; kind comrades leaning over to bathe
parched lips and fevered brows, and whisper to them of the
far off home, to rouse their failing courage.

And now the sink with its crowded poles and crowds
standing by watching, struggling for a place, the creek above
full of men bathing and lined by others washing clothes, and
above them, where the water came in under the dead-
line a crowd with buckets formed in lines and taking each his
turn as it comes to dip his can or bucket or cup and get clean
water. Now and then one reaches too far or is pushed from
behind across the fatal line, and his brains and blood float
down among the bathers.

Now, put in the skeletons with poles striking at the skim-
ming swallows. A hundred corpses laid in a row at the south
gate all nearly naked, on the breast of each a slip of paper and
a price, and sitting at the head of each one an owner watching
either to sell his corpse or for his turn to carry it out.

Near the same gate, show the poor one-legged man on

THE SMOKED TANK. 139

his crutch and the fire from the gun of the guard above,
reaching clear to his face, as it did.

Now cover the swamp with its seething, squirming mass
of corruption, with here and there a helpless being lying
in it. Show a hundred more scattered around under the
scorching sun in the last stages of scurvy with flies, and mag-
gots, and lice feeding upon them, and groans and curses; — no,
you cannot paint groans and curses. You cannot paint the din
and racket and roar. It was not enough that thousands should
die from disease brought on by hunger and exposure, and
made fatal by lack of medicine and care — they must die with
the food and vegetables that would save their lives, in sight.
With the peddler's cry and the huckster's call, offering for
sale dainty dishes, sounding all day in their ears. These
things, you cannot paint no more than you can the feelings
they caused in the minds of starving men.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW I MANAGE TO LIVE MY BUNK-MATE GOES TO THE

HOSPITAL, 1 SECURE A CORNER LOT, AND GET INTO

TRADE — SHERMAN'S FINE-TOOTH COMBS AND SCISSORS —
REMOVAL TO FLORENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.

I now come to what will be of more interest, at least, to
m)^ boys. They want to know how I managed to live where
so many died. As before stated, my bunk-mate, Cook, and
myself, went into the Andersonville prison penniless and
entirely destitute in every way. The clothes we had on had
been cut into holes, to keep them from being taken when we
were at Canton, Miss. We began, at first, to flank out with
those detailed to bring in wood. In this way we secured our
part of a shanty, made of brush and boughs. We sold some
of the wood that we secured flanking out. A little bundle of
"fat" pine, as much as a common stove stick would make,
when split up fine, brought twenty-five cents in the prison.
Such bundles of "fat" pine are now sold in southern cities,
especially at Atlanta, Georgia, where I lately saw them, for
one cent. They are used for kindling. We used them to
boil our little cans of mush. One little blaze held under a
can would keep it boiling, and a small bundle of the wood
lasted a prisoner several days. You could light one end of
a piece of good, "fat" pine, stick the other end in the ground'
and it would burn there like a candle. The smoke from that

THE SMOKED YANK.

141

kind of wood is something like a mixture of soot and oil. It
made us all black. It took good soap and warm water to
make any impression on it. Water could be warmed in the
sun, but soap was scarce. With the money we got for wood,
Lynn and I managed to piece out our rations, so as to live.

We had only been there two or three weeks, when we
began to get cooked rations. After that there was no more
flanking out. The coarse corn bread made Lynn sick. It
soon became so loathsome to him that he could not eat it at
all. In that condition, a man could die of hunger with piles of
the corn bread in his bed. In spite of all I could do for Lynn
he grew gradually worse. I walked for hours, trying to trade
his corn bread and strong meat for beans, or rice, or some-
thing that he could eat. Often I could not, because too many
wanted to trade the same way.

Davidson, our partner in the shanty, had money. I per-
suaded him to loan me ten dollars. With this money I started
a small huckster stand. Sold salt, rice, beans, tobacco, and such
things as I could manage with so little capital. Prices were
so high that you could put in one pocket ten dollars worth of
such articles. With the profits from this stand, I got for Lynn
a little food which he could eat. Before I had gained enough to
make a start of my own, the raiders became so bad that Dav-
idson was afraid I would get robbed. I had to pay him back
and quit. Then Lynn thought he would try the hospital. We
had not yet learned that but very few who went there recov-
ered. We carried him to sick-call. He was admitted to the
hospital. Within a few weeks, we learned that he was dead.
No braver boy or better comrade ever wore the blue.

After Lynn went to the hospital, I put in a few weeks dig-
ging tunnels and trying to find a chance or contrive a plan for
(so)

i42 THE SMOKED YANK.

escape. During these weeks, I had nothing to eat but my
rations. I got so thin that there was nothing of me but skin
and bone. The scurvy got hold of me, my gums swelled and
my teeth got sore and loose ; my knees were swollen and my
feet puffed and bloated. I began to realize that I must get
help or die, and 1 suffered from hunger. Had I lost my grip
then, I would have been a goner. The harder the lines were
drawn, the more was I determined to live it out.

About this time the - prison was enlarged by taking in
eight acres adjoining the old stockade on the north. Certain
detachments were designated to occupy this new ground,
which was covered with the boughs and limbs of the trees
that had been cut down for the new stockade. My detach-
ment was not one that was to go, but I managed to flank in,
and to secure a footing, and build a shanty on the main street
of the new part, and at a good place for trade. As soon as
the ground in the new part was divided off and occupied
the old stockade between the old and the new parts was
turned over to the prisoners, and a general scramble for the
stockade logs began. I took part in that, with some success.

I now had a shanty on one of the best places in the
prison for a huckster's stand. How I managed to hold it I
cannot now remember. I was a squatter, pure and simple,
with no right whatever to ground even to sleep on in that
part of the prison, but hold it I did.

Limber Jim was one of the Cahaba prisoners. He had
got rich selling his famous "root beer," and running a big
stand. I showed him my fine location, and asked him to start
me in business. He did so. In fact, he said he wanted to go
out of the trade, because he had made enough to do him,
and business was getting dull. So, he sold me, on credit, his

THE SMOKED YANK. 143

entire stock of goods, amounting to $340. It was a large
stock to get on credit, but not difficult to carry. There was a
five gallon keg of honey, partly full, billed at $150, a bushel
of potatoes, at $75, a box of tobacco, at $25, and a few other
things. It did not take a large counter to display the whole
stock. I kept it at night in a box, sunk in the earth, in my
shanty, and made my bed over the box at night. So I began
trade, on what I thought, and what was for that place, a large
scale. The money we used was mostly greenbacks. Con-
federate money was taken at twenty cents on the dollar. All
prices were given in the ruling currency, or greenbacks.
Potatoes were sold at $75 per bushel, and retailed at from
twenty-five to seventy-five cents each, according to size. It
was said that one large potato would cure a case of scurvy.
Biscuits were bought at $2.50 a dozen, and sold at twenty-five
cents each, thirty cents with butter, and thirty-five cents with
honey. Eggs retailed at twenty-five cents each; salt, twenty-
five cents a spoonful; melons, ten to twenty-five cents a slice,
according to the size of the slice ; a pint cup of chicken broth,
with a spoonful of rice and chicken, shown in the spoon, on
top of the cup, forty cents; huckleberry pies were bought at
$1.25 each, and sold for forty cents a quarter. Whiskey was
scarce, and hard to find, but now and then a canteen full
would be smuggled in, and it sold for twenty-five cents for
one swallow from the canteen. The prices of all other goods
(and you could buy almost everything in the provision line, if
you had money) were in the same proportion. These prices
were outrageous, and the result of the monopoly enjoyed by
the prison sutler, one Selden, formerly of Dubuque, Iowa, and
a meaner rascal than old Wirz knew how to be. No one else
was allowed to sell anything to the prisoners, but a consider-

I44 THE SMOKED YANK.

able trade was carried on by smugglers, both prisoners and
guards. In order to do anything in the smuggling line, which
was more profitable than legitimate trade, I secured a
prisoner, named James Donahue, who belonged to an Indiana
regiment, as a partner. He could neither read nor write, but
was an expert in the smuggling line, and quick and sharp in
any kind of trade. Escape was my hobby, and I spent most
of my profits in various tunnels and other projects for escape,
but never succeeded in getting out, though I was several
times very near success.

When Sherman's army approached Atlanta, the rebels
found that a raid would be made to liberate us, and began
preparations for our removal. Stoneman's raid was designed
for our release, but did not succeed. On the contrary, a large
number of his men were captured, and brought to Anderson-
ville as prisoners.

Instead of rendering any assistance to us, the badly
managed raid of Stoneman resulted in adding several thousand
to the already densely packed prison, making our condition
worse than before. This was not Sherman's fault. The
plan was a good one, and did credit both to his head and to
his heart. Had others in authority manifested as much
interest in, and consideration for the prisoners, as Sherman
did, some arrangement would have been made for their
relief. What a pity that Sheridan, or Kilpatrick, or some
man capable of conducting such a campaign, was not chosen
for the work. No other opportunity for a feat-of-arms so
brilliant as the release of the Andersonville prisoners would
have been, was furnished by the war.

I always have to laugh when I think of Sherman's
scheme for the relief of the prisoners. On page 143, second

THE SMOKED TANK.

145

volume, of his Memoirs, he says : « All this time Hood and I
were carrying on the foregoing correspondence, relating to
the exchange of prisoners, the removal of the people from
Atlanta, and the relief of our prisoners-of-war at Anderson-
ville. Notwithstanding the severity of their imprisonment,
some of these men escaped from Andersonville, and got to
me at Atlanta. They described their sad condition. More
than 25,000 prisoners confined in a stockade designed for
only 10,000; debarred the privilege of gathering wood out of
which to make huts; deprived of sufficient healthy food; and
the little stream that ran through their prison pen poisoned
and polluted by the offal from their cooking and butchering
houses above. On the 22d of September I wrote to General
Hood, describing the condition of our men at Andersonville,
purposely refraining from casting odium on him, or his
associates for the treatment of these men, but asking his con-
sent for me to procure from our generous friends at the
North the articles of clothing and comfort, which they
wanted, viz., underclothing, soap, combs, scissors, etc., all
needed to keep them in health, and to send these stores with
a train, and an officer to issue them. General Hood, on
the 24th, promptly consented, and I telegraphed to my friend,
Mr. James E. Yeatman, vice-president of the Sanitary Com-
mission at St. Louis, to send us all the underclothing and soap
he could spare, specifying 1,200 fine-tooth combs, and 400
pairs of shears to cut hair. These articles indicate the plague
that most afflicted our prisoners at Andersonville.

"Mr. Yeatman promptly responded to my request, ex-
pressed the articles, but they did not reach Andersonville in
time, for the prisoners were soon after removed. These
supplies did, however, finally overtake them at Jacksonville,
Florida, just before the war closed."

I46 THE SMOKED YANK.

Soap, fine-tooth combs, scissors, and underclothes.
What an idea he must have had of our "sad condition," when
he thought those articles indicated the plague that most af-
flicted us.

Uncle Billy, your judgment of the fighting, marching,
foraging capacity of a Yankee soldier was never at fault, but
when you proposed to relieve 30,000 starving Yankees with
"1,200 fine-tooth combs and 400 pairs of shears," you were
away off. You made no allowance, whatever, for Yankee
ingenuity. The soap would have been handy, the under-
clothes would have made fine summer suits, but we were not
particular about our appearance. A starving man will eat
before making his toilet. There were plenty of fine-tooth
combs, and enough shears. If there hadn't been, how long
would it have taken Yankees to have made them? We were
not troubled much with the kind that you can catch with a
fine-tooth comb, or cut off with scissors. It was not the
fashion there to give away things to eat, but combs and
scissors were freely lent. Hard-tack, sow-belly, rice, and
beans, Uncle Billy, those, and vegetables for scurvy, would
have cured us all. Had you been there and seen men make
counterfeit greenbacks; make jewelry, and mend watches, to
say nothing about combs, wooden buckets, and the like, you
would laugh, yourself, at the idea of relieving them with fine-
tooth combs and scissors.

One evening, just after dark, I sold something to a
prisoner, and gave him change for a $10 greenback. In
broad daylight that greenback wouldn't pass, but it was fine
work to be done in such a place. I took in trade an open-
face silver watch. The crystal got broken. I took it to a
watch-maker's shop. He ceuldn't make a crystal, but he

THE SMOKED TANK. 147

took a silver half dollar, and with it converted my watch into
a hunter case. All such trades were represented there.

When arrangements for our removal were perfected, the
old story of a general exchange was again circulated, and was
again believed because so much desired. Donahue, my part-
ner, bought a chance to go with the first lot that were taken
out. The man who sold the chance staying in Donahue's
place. I think the first lot were taken to Savannah and ex-
changed. When the time came for the detachment to which
I belonged to go, I sold out my little stock of goods and con-
cealed in my clothes about seventy dollars in greenbacks
that I had accumulated.

We were marched out by detachments. There were so
many too weak to walk or so lame from scurvy, that every
well man had to assist one or two of the sick or lame to the
depot about a mile away. We were halted in front of Wirz's
quarters to answer roll-call and be counted, Wirz had been
sick, but he came out leaning on a cane, and took occasion to
do some of his Dutch swearing. He called us damned Yan-
kee thieves and robbers; said we didn't look so fine as when
we came there; was sorry there were so many of us able to go,
and that if he had had his way, there wouldn't have been a
damn man of us alive. I can't remember his words, but that
is the substance of his brutal leave-taking.

We were loaded into common cattle cars and fastened in.
Guards with guns rode on the top of each car. At Milledge-
ville, we were unloaded for awhile, and when we were again
started from there toward Charleston, we began to feel sure
that our prison days were about over. Our hopes revived.
We were happy; men who had not smiled for months were
brim-full of joy and glee. They forgot hunger, and swollen

I48 THE SMOKED YANK.

joints, and fleshless limbs, and useless feet, and talked of bliss-
ful hours to come; of meetings soon to be with wives and
children, with fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, and many
of "another not a sister." And then the talk would run on
things they would get to eat; imaginary tables would be
spread, upon which each would place his favorite dish, and all
this while crowded together in cattle cars so closely that we
had to take turns in lying down. There were no regrets, no
mention of past suffering. Hope, bright angel of the morning,
ruled in each breast, and to a bright and joyous future each
weary eye was turned. Sad, sad, was the sequel.

We reached Charleston, heard the sound of Union guns,
even caught a glimpse of the dear old flag. What rejoicing!
How we shouted! But presently our train moved on. Our
hopes began to sink. When the dismal tidings came that we
were on our way to Florence, to another stockade, utter woe
and despair took possession where joyful hope had been.

CHAPTER XIX.

I GO FOR WATER AND ESCAPE A FAITHFUL PEOPLE A

NOVEL CHARACTER — -A COMICAL HERO.

At Florence, S. C., we were unloaded and placed on some
vacant ground near the depot and a chain of guards thrown
around us. It was a little before sundown. I had carried
with me a bundle containing a pair of clean, white pants made
of meal bags, and a white shirt; obtaining some water and
soap, I washed myself, put on the clean pants and shirt and
made myself look as little like a Yankee prisoner as I pos-
sibly could. I was planning to bribe a guard and get away,
or, if that failed, to knock one over in the dark and run. I
had determined to make at least an effort to escape before
entering another stockade. I had some sweet potatoes that
I had bought from a negro at a station on the way, and these
I wanted to cook so as to leave on a full stomach.

There was a sergeant and squad of guards detailed to guard
the prisoners, from the ground where we were kept, to the well
where water was obtained. I picked up a bucket to go for
water, and got to the place where an officer was stationed to
count out and in those who went for water, a little after a gang
had passed out. I spoke politely to the officer and told him I
wanted some water and would at once over-take the party.
They were but thirty or forty steps away, and he said : " Step
out quick then, and catch up." I did so in good faith, and he

I5o THE SMOKED YANK.

made another mark on his tally-sheet. I quickly over-took
the party, noticing that the officer had turned around as soon
as he saw me well up with them, and also that neither the ser-
geant nor any of the guards had observed my approach. So,
instead of falling in behind the column of prisoners, I put on a
careless air and walked a little faster, passing both the prison-
ers and the guards who marched behind them, and walked
along in front of the whole party; it occurred to me that the
guards might not take me for a Yankee on account of my
clothes, and that I could test that point without being charge-
able with an attempt to escape. The orders were to shoot
any prisoner caught in the act of attempting to escape, and I
did not want to run the risk of being shot.

The well that we were going to was in the yard behind
the house. I got to it first, filled my bucket and sat down
on the back porch of the house beside the owner of the prem-
ises and commenced talking with him about the Yankee pris-
oners, conveying the idea that I was not one of them.

The prisoners spent some time in washing themselves
before they filled their pails to return. I was in an agony of
suspense. I did not know whether the sergeant in charge
took me for a prisoner or not, and I dared not undertake to
go away until I found out, so I put on as much unconcern
as I could and waited. Finally, the order came, "Fall in,
Yanks, fall in." The rest formed in line. I paid no atten-
tion, but kept on talking to the proprietor. I saw the
sergeant looking sharply at me ; then he counted his prisoners,
and, satisfied with the count that I was not one, he marched
them away. I was not with the party when he counted them
out. My new-made acquaintance was now in the way. I
had to do something with my pail of water or his suspicions

THE SMOKED YANK. 151

would be aroused. There was no time to spare, for it was
only two hundred yards to where the counting-in would be
done by the officer that let me out and I would be missed;
fortunately the man stepped into the house. I set my pail of
water behind the well-curb, scaled the high board fence at the
back of the yard and walked off; I dared not run for that
would attract the attention of people who were in sight. I
got to the main street where many people were moving back
and forth and talking about the Yanks, and walked away as
fast as I could; looking back I saw bayonets glistening in the
rays of the setting sun all around that well and yard. I
gained the outskirts of the town without being noticed; got
into a patch of woods and then ran; ran until I felt safe from
immediate pursuit, and then walked on through the woods.

About ten o'clock that night, I ran across a party of negroes
hunting possum; I told them who I was, and asked them
about the country, the roads, and the prospects of my
getting to Union lines. They advised me to make for the
coast, and when there, to signal some blockading vessel.
They said such vessels patrolled the coast, to prevent the rebels
making salt. I resolved to follow their advice. They told
me to cross the Pedee river at a certain ferry, run by a negro
whom they said I could trust. I found the ferry, and in the
morning, when the negro came out, made myself known to
him. He said it was not safe to travel by day, and took me
to a hiding place in the woods, to stay until night, and furn-
ished me with plenty to eat. That night, when he came after
me, he brought along another escaped prisoner, a young fel-
low whose name I have forgotten; he seem to be all right, and
we agreed to stay together. The ferry-man thought our best
way was to get a boat, and go down the river to the coast.

IS2 THE SMOKED TANK.

As there was no moon, he thought we could paddle down by
night, without being seen, and hide in the swamps during the
day. He told us where we would find a dug-out, and loaned
us an iron bar, with which to break the lock. We were soon
in the dug-out, paddling down the Pedee. When morning came
I wanted to hide in the woods, but my companion wanted to land
at a plantation, and get some provisions. We had enough
food provided by the ferry-man, for that day, and I objected
to running any unnecessary risks, but he insisted on landing,
so I paddled the canoe to the east bank of the river, and
stepped out, telling him to go his way, and I would go mine.
I never saw him again.

I lay in the brush until toward night, and then started to
find some road or plantation, before dark, where I could find
a negro to give me directions. There was a wide swamp on
that side of the river, and not being aware of it, I was soon
in it. It was a dismal enough place, full of owls, and bats,
and snakes. I traveled several hours in this swamp, and was
beginning to think myself in a fix, when I heard a cow-bell,
and steering for that, found dry ground. I came to a planta-
tion that night, skulked around until I saw a negro alone, to
whom I told my story. He said that every white man,
woman and child, in the county, was looking for escaped
prisoners; that all the bridges and cause-ways across swamps,
were guarded at night, and all the roads patrolled. The only
way I could get through, was to secrete myself during the
day, and travel with a negro guide at night, who would know
how to avoid roads and bridges. This negro guided me about
ten miles that night, and left me with one of his friends. The
next day was Sunday, and quite a number of negroes visited
me, where I was hid in the woods; they brought food to give

THE SMOKED YANK. 153

me, and treated me very kindly; I was the first Union soldier
and probably the first Union man, any of them had ever seen.
The questions they asked, were both numerous and novel.
I was surprised at their intelligence, in some directions, and
amused at their ignorance, in others. Their ideas of govern-
ment, and of personal and property rights, were all drawn
from the Bible. That was their sole authority, and they had
that down fine. Even those who could not read, only now
and then one could, would quote passage after passage from
the Bible relating to themselves, and give the verse and
chapter with surprising accuracy. Deliverance from slavery,
was not a surprise to them ; they had been hoping and pray-
ing for it for years, with perfect faith that their prayers would
be answered. It seemed that they had always expected it to
come from some outside source, and had never entertained a
thought of taking a part themselves, in their deliverance.
They were and are a peculiarly faithful and patient people.
Should they ever become thoroughly aroused and united in
a movement to throw off the white man's yoke, that still
oppresses and galls them, I believe that the fortitude, endur-
ance, and heroism they will display, will surprise the world.
The leader of the company that staid in the woods with
me nearly all that day, was a preacher. Before he left, see-
ing that I had no coat, he asked me if I did not need one and
soon after they went away, one of them came back, bringing
me quite a comfortable overcoat. That night I was guided
to a plantation on a public road running from Florence to a
place on the coast where there were salt works. There, a
plan was formed, of secreting me in a wagon that made
weekly trips to the coast, driven by a negro. I waited two
days for the wagon, concealed in the daytime in a fodder

i54 THE SMOKED TANK.

house, under the bundles of corn fodder. When the negro
came along with his wagon, he had two passengers, a white
woman and her little girl. Of course I could not ride in such
company.

That night I was piloted again through woods and swamps
and left at the house of a negro preacher. He lived alone, and
when he went to work, locked his door with a padlock on
the outside, leaving me on the inside. He procured for me
some paper, pen, and ink, and I wrote myself a rebel fur-
lough, thinking it might come handy should I be picked up by
some of the patrols. I represented myself in the furlough as
belonging to the Georgia regiment that had guarded us from
Andersonville to Florence, and I signed the name of a captain
whom I happened to know. That night there was no one
ready to guide me further, and I was taken to a stack
of straw out in a field, into which I crawled to spend the
ni^ht. Along in the night someo'ne came and crawled into
the straw quite close to me. I thought it must be a negro,
but said nothing. About daylight I heard my unknown bed-
fellow crawling out, and concluded to crawl out too, and see
who he was. We were both badly scared when we stood up
and faced each other. He was a rebel soldier in full uniform.
He had deserted, and was hiding in the neighborhood of his
home, making occasional visits by stealth to his family. I
bought this man's jacket which had South Carolina buttons,
for $5 in greenbacks.

That day I was secreted in the woods, and when my
dinner was brought to me at noon, a big negro with a club
and a gun, accompanied the bearer. He was a run-away
slave. Had been in the woods and swamps for seven years.
Had often been pursued, but never captured. Said that

THE SMOKED YANK. 155

white men could not take him alive. He roamed about from
place to place, occasionally visiting his wife and children.
He was known to most of the negroes in the regions he
frequented, and by them had never been betrayed. He
killed hogs and cattle, and traded the meat to other negroes
for clothing and bread. He was a veritable wild man of the
woods, and the story of his adventures and escapes from
blood-hounds, entertained and thrillled me for hours.

That night I secured a guide and moved on. Was left
at another plantation, where I staid two days to let an old uncle
mend my shoes.

Provided with another faithful guide, I passed through a
wide swamp, crossing the deep creeks on a foot-path of logs
known only to negroes. Over the swamp, I was directed to
a plantation some miles away, where I was to wake up another
negro in a certain one of the negro houses that was described.
It was a bright moonlight night, and I did not feel safe on a
public road, so I stopped at the first plantation I came to,
thinking it better to trust the first negro I could find than to
go alone.

I knocked at what I supposed was a negro quarter. At
first, no answer. I rapped louder, and a voice called out:
" Who is there? " It was unquestionably a white man's voice.
I replied : " I'm a stranger, have lost my way and want to stay
all night." And then I ran. Was out of sight by the time
he had slipped on his pants and opened the door. I ran on
until I came to the forks of two roads. Here there was a
solitary log house. I crept up to it, and peering through a
crack, saw two negroes sitting in front of the fireplace.
They were talking, and, thinking I could form an opinion
from their talk as to whether they would do for me to trust,

iS6 THE SMOKED TANK.

I watched them and listened. Presently, I heard the gallop-
ing of a horse, up the road I came, and had just time to hide
in the shadow of some scrub oaks near by, when a white man
came up at full gallop, revolver in hand. He rapped at the
door and brought the negroes out, saying : " Bring out that
white rascal you have got hid in there." They had seen no
white man, and told him to come in and search, which he did.

He then galloped away, taking the same road I wanted
to follow. I did not like the appearance of the two negroes,
and so ran on after my pursuer. He stopped at every planta-
tion, and made inquiries, and I usually came up about the
time he would be leaving. I followed him in this way, until
I came to the plantation that I had been directed to, and
counting off so many houses from the white folks' house, and
whispering his name at a crack between the logs, attracted
the attention of the negro that I was after. He had been
awakened by the noise made by the man on the horse. He
was wonderfully tickled at the idea of my following the man
who was pursuing me. This negro advised me to stay with
him until the negro from Florence, with the wagon, came
along again. Said he would be there on the next night, on
his way to the coast, and would stay all night with him. I
stayed concealed in the woods. The negro with the wagon
was on time, and early the following morning I was carefully
stored away in the wagon underneath the fodder carried to
feed the mules. It was a covered wagon, and full of the
fodder of that country, which is the leaves stripped from corn,
cured and tied in bundles. The wagon was drawn by three
mules. The driver rode on the nigh wheel mule, and drove
the leader with a jerk-line.

I have seen many attempts to imitate the negro, but here

THE SMOKED TANK. I57

was an original and comic genius that beat any negro minstrel
I have ever seen. He had a banjo, a fiddle, and a pair of
bones. He wore a fireman's hat, made of leather and iron,
and was otherwise rigged out in clownish fashion. At nearly
every house we passed he had something to deliver. Pack-
ages of goods, purchased at Florence, letters, and messages.
His wagon seemed to be a kind of weekly express for all the
country through which he passed. Every one knew him, and
every one bantered and joked with him. As he drove along
the road he whistled, and sang, and played on his several in-
struments in turn.

At Conwayborough, a village through which we passed,
there was a bridge and some rebel soldiers on guard. The
negro bantered and joked with them, also, and when they
ask him if he had any Yanks in his wagon, he replied, "Go
way dah, you home guards — you'uns thought dah was Yanks
in dis here wagon, I could jus dance juba on you 'ns coat
tails as dey 'd stick out behind."

The rebels thought best to make some search, and they
poked the fodder around with the muzzles of their guns. As
for me, I was so badly scared that I thought they must surely
hear the rattle of the fodder, caused by the beating of my
heart. They discovered nothing, and we moved on.

When there were no houses in sight I crawled out of my
hole in the fodder, and watched the road behind us, the driver
watching in front. And thus with music and song, gibes and
jokes, and juba danced on the saddle of the nigh mule, we
journeyed to the sea.

About 10 o'clock that night we began to hear the sound
of the breakers. I had never seen the sea, and supposed that
when it was calm there were no waves. This was a beauti-

158 THE SMOKED TANK.

ful, calm, moonlight night, and to hear the roar of breakers
two miles away was a revelation to me. T had thought all
along that I would take a great bath when I came to the sea,
and when we got there I undressed and walked out on the
sandy beach, but those breakers I had not counted on, and I
dared not venture in.

CHAPTER XX.

" HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A WOMAN SCORNED " A BADLY

SCARED NEGRO CAPTURED BY A FOURTEEN- YEAR-OLD

BOY — -IN A FELON'S CELL.

My comical guide made me known to some of the
darkies at the salt works. They kept me concealed and took
care of me several days, but thought there was not much
prospect of my getting away on a blockade vessel; said the
blockaders had ceased to visit that part of the coast. I
remained there until I got tired of waiting and watching, and
then, after consulting with the best posted of the negroes,
concluded to work my way into Wilmington, N. C., and if
possible, enlist on on a blockade runner. These darkies had
heard that it was so hard to get men to go on blockade run-
ners, that the officers would take whoever applied, without
asking questions.

My idea was that if I could get on one of these vessels, and
did not get captured by my friends, I could claim protection
from an American Consul at some neutral port, where the
vessel would land. I was near the line between North and
South Carolina, and one night, I started up the coast toward
Wilmington. About 12 o'clock, I came to a stream or inlet,
where there was a ferry. There was a plantation on the side
of the stream that I was on, and quite a number of negro
houses, I entered one of these, the door of which was open,

160 THE SMOKED TANK.

and after pulling and shaking him for some time, awakened a
negro who lay on the floor with his feet to the fireplace in
which there was a fire burning. He turned out to be a pure
African, born in Africa, and I could not get much out of him;
in fact, could not understand much of his jargon. While try-
ing to talk with this man, two other negroes came in, who had
been out hunting. From them, I learned that the plantation
belonged to Captain - — ; that he was suspected of being a
Union man; that he had sold all his slaves before the war be-
gan, and that he was originally from the state of Maine ; had
been captain of a vessel engaged in shipping; owned the plan-
tation, and was working it with hired negroes; also that there
was a small fort just across the inlet or stream, and some
rebel soldiers there.

Pondering these things, it occurred to me that it would do
to trust this white man. So I went to his house and rapped on
his door. At first 1 got no answer. Rapping harder, some
one called out, "Who's there?" I replied, "I am a stranger
and want to see Mr. - — ." I listened with my ear at the
door, heard him get up and dress, and thought I heard him
getting down a gun. Anyway, my courage failed me as I
thought of the fix I would be in if he should open the door
gun in hand. In that case, it would be all right if he turned
out to be a Union man, and all wrong otherwise. And just
then, it occurred to me that a Union man would not have been
permitted to remain alive in that country, and that I did n't
want to see a man that was so long getting ready to open his
door. When he did open it, I was not there, I had changed
my mind and was making double-quick time for a bridge that
the darkies said crossed the stream some miles up from that
place. Their direction was to take the main road until I came

THE SMOKED TANK. rfi

to a road turning off to the right. I did so, and after follow-
ing the road that turned off to the right two or three miles, it
gave out and I found it to be only a wood road. Retracing
my steps, I got into the main road and followed it to where a
second road turned off to the right; followed that two or three
miles with the same success as before, and when I got back
to the main road again, it was broad daylight, and I was still
in sight of that plantation. In fact, was on a part of it, and
looking through the cracks of a log house, saw two negro
women sleeping on the floor, and one up cooking breakfast.

Being tired and hungry, I asked the woman to let me in.
She objected at first, but when I told her I was a Union sol-
dier escaped from prison, she unlocked the door and let me
in. I told her I had been traveling all night and would like
something to eat. I wish I could repeat verbatim all that
woman said. Her home was in Georgia, where she had a family
of children from whom she had been taken and sent as a hired
hand to work on this plantation. Her whole soul was up in
arms against the whole white race. She give me something to
eat! No; if one mouthful of her bread would keep every
white man on earth from starving, she wouldn't give it. I
asked her why she had let me in, and tried to explain that I
was a Union soldier, and that Union soldiers were friends of
the slaves. No use. She had let me in because she wanted
a chance to speak her mind to a white man, whom she had no
cause to fear; and she improved the opportunity by cursing
and emptying the vials of her wrath on me as a substitute for
the whole white race. Hers was the most cutting abuse I
ever heard from human tongue, and withal, she displayed
facility in the use of words, and a kind of rude eloquence. I
offered to pay her for something to eat. She would rather

1 62 THE SMOKED TANK.

turn a white man from her door hungry than to have all the
money on earth. I asked her if she was going to tell her
master that I had been there? No, she wouldn't do anything
to please her master, and receiving this assurance, I was glad
to be turned hungry from her door. She was the only one of
the race I ever applied to in vain for assistance.

I had until this time avoided traveling alone by day, but
now saw no way of finding and crossing the bridge except by
daylight. After resting and sleeping awhile in the woods, I
started again to find the bridge. Where there was timber on
both sides of the road, I followed the road walking in the edge
of the woods, watching warily, and ready to hide behind trees
should I meet or see anyone. About noon, I met a negro
boy and asked him about roads, plantations, negroes, and such
things as I wanted to know, without telling him who I was.
I made a blunder in saying to him as he rode away, not to tell
any white man that he -had seen me. Now, it happened that
I was passing through that neighborhood, or trying to pass
through, on the very day set by the planters for a grand hunt
with dogs and guns, after a lot of rebel deserters who infested
the region, concealing themselves in swamps by day, and prey-
ing on pig-pens, hen-roosts, and what ever else they could
steal by night. The negroes were not more friendly to this
class of marauders than the whites were. The negro boy I
talked with took me for one of these deserters, and immedi-
ately rode to where his master and other white men had as-
sembled, and put them on my track.

Near where I met the boy, there was a log house in the
middle of a corn field. The boy told me it was an old
negro's quarter. When the boy was out of sight, I went
into a school house near the road on my right and there left

THE SMOKED TANK. 163

my overcoat, and a little bundle, in which I had some fat bacon
and some raw sweet potatoes, concealed under a desk. I then
crossed the road and went to this negro quarter. The old
negro had seen me meet the boy, and he was much alarmed
when I told him my story. He feared the boy would report
me. He gave me some raw fish and bread and a little fire
between two pieces of bark, and directed me to a place in
the swamp across the field where I could, he thought, build a
small fire and not be found unless the dogs should take my
track, in which case he said I should be sure to be caught
whether I stopped or not. He did not think the dogs would
follow a white man's track.

I built a small fire and roasted my fish, which were from
the salt water, mullets, I think, and the finest fish I ever
tasted. Dinner over, I took a nap, and, when I awoke, started
back to the negro hut, but not following the path by which I
had come. The old man saw me coming and met me in the
corn. He was the most complete picture of fright that you
can possibly imagine. His hair literally stood straight up,
woolly hair at that. His teeth chattered and his black face
seemed to be an ash color. He was so much agitated that at
first I could not understand his rapidly uttered jargon. Fin-
ally, he made me understand that the white men were after
me, had been to his house, and were on my track into the
woods. He wanted me to go with him and give myself up.
"Oh, Massa," he said, "if da' don't ketch you, da' skin dis
nigga alive. Da' done tie dis nigga up an whip him to def."
I quieted his fears as much as I could, and hastened across
the cornfield to the school-house. My coat and bundle were
gone. I surmised that the dogs not being trained for that
purpose, would not track a white man, and that it would be

1 64 THE SMOKED YANK.

better to hide than to travel and take chances of being seen.

Not far off there was an abandoned field with deep gul-
lies washed through, and in the gullies and on their sides a
thick matting of blackberry briers, vines, and brush. I made
mv way to this field, taking care to leave no tracks that could
be seen, and hid in one of the ravines. There, I could plainly
hear the tooting of horns and the sound of voices calling to the
hounds. The negro was right; the hounds were not trained
for white man's track.

I started again about midnight, moving stealthily through
woods and fields on a line with the road. In about two hours,
I reached the river again that I wanted to cross. I knew the
bridge was near, but I feared a guard might be there, and I
made a bundle of my clothes, intending to tie them on
top of my head, and swim across. As I sat on the bank in the
moonlight wondering if I could swim well enough to reach the
other shore, I saw something disturb the water; a large fish or
an alligator. All thought of getting into that water vanished.
I put on my clothes and crept cautiously from tree to
tree, along the bank, until I could see the bridge. I
crawled up close to it and watched and listened. I
lay there half an hour or more. I could neither hear
nor see anything to indicate that a guard was there. Think-
ing that if there should be a guard there, it would be better
for me to be stopped walking carelessly along than to be
caught trying to slip over, especially as I meant to play the
furlough dodge if I should be taken, I slipped back into the
woods, stepped into the road some distance from the bridge,
and came whistling along to the bridge. Was half way over
and breathing freer, when a boy stepped from behind a large
tree in front of me, and called out, " Halt ! " He was but

THE SMOKED TANK. 165

twenty rods away, and I could see plainly that he was a mere
boy, but he held a dangerous weapon, a double-barreled shot-
gun. I could see that both barrels were cocked, and that boy or
no boy, he meant business. " Well, my boy," I said, " What do
you want ? " " About, face ! " " You must be a raw recruit,"
I said. "You ought to say, 'Who goes there!' if I say,
'Friend!' then you should say, 'Advance and give the count-
ersign!" "You about face," said he, "or I'll shoot!" and
he leveled his gun. There was no other way to do, and I
turned around. " Forward, march ! " was his next command.
I tried to talk to him and get him to look at my furlough, but
he would have none of it, and answered nothing, except
"Forward march!" and "Go right along, or I'll shoot!" And
forward march, it was; captured by a fourteen-year-old boy
that I could have dropped over the bridge with one hand,
could I have prevailed on him to come within my reach. We
marched back about half a mile, the boy keeping well behind
with cocked gun, when we met his brother-in-law, on horse-
back, coming to relieve him. The brother-in-law was a lieu-
tenant of artillery, and at home on a furlough. They marched
me back to their father's house which was near where I had
been hunted the day before. On the way, I learned that they
took me for a deserter, and that when the crowd gathered the
next day I was liable to be hung, or whipped severely at the
best, and sent to the front. Under these circumstances, I
thought it best to show my colors, so I told them I was a pris-
oner of war trying to escape. When we got into the house, I
was given a seat near the fire-place and managed to slip my
furlough into the fire without being seen.

It was hard to make these people believe that I was a
Union soldier. They said I talked and looked like a South-

1 66 THE SMOKED TANK.

erner. I told them it was easy enough for me to talk and
act like a southern man, because my parents were Kentuck-
ians, and both my grandfathers, Virginians, and that when I
tried to play the rebel soldier, as I was trying until they talked
about ropes and whips, all I had to do, was to fall back on my
mother tongue.

The owner of this place was an ideal southern man, man-
ners, chivalry and all. He scouted the idea of mistreating a
prisoner. "This young man," said he, "was a gentleman at
home, and in my house he shall be treated as a guest." There
were in the family, two daughters, two sons, and the son-in-
law who was at home on a furlough.

When breakfast time came, these young people seemed
to object to eating at the same table with a Yankee soldier.
"Then turn him loose," said the old man. "No white man
whose ancestors are from Kentucky and Virginia shall be
forced to sit here while we eat, and not be offered a seat at
the table." I tried to make some excuse, not caring to sit at
a table where there were those who objected, but the old
gentleman would take no excuses. "If you were my boy,"
he said, "you would be in the rebel army. You live in the
North, and you would be a traitor to your home if you were
not on the Union side."

After breakfast, my boy captor was sent on a horse to the
fort at the mouth of the river, and brought back two soldiers who
took me to the fort. The next day was Sunday and hundreds
of people, both white and black, came to take their first look
at a Yankee soldier. I was kept there several days, and then
sent along with several guards and some loaded wagons to
Whiteville, a place on the railroad between Florence and Wil-
mington.

THE SMOKED TANK, X67

We arrived at this place on Saturday morning after the
train to Florence had passed and I had to remain until Men-
day, and was turned over to the provost marshal. This gen-
tleman treated me very kindly, walked around the town with
me for awhile, and took me to his house to tea.

When night came, however, he said he would have to lock
me up in the county jail. I objected to this, and tried hard to
persuade him to either put a guard over me, or take my
parole of honor and keep me at his house. He would not
yield, and into the jail, behind the bars of a common felon's
cell, I had to go. It had been humiliating to be captured by
a fourteen-year-old boy; to be locked in a felon's cell, although
charged with no crime, broke me all up; I felt that it was a
disgrace ; I lay down on the straw mattress in the cell and
cried like a child.

The next morning when the jailor came in with food for
the prisoners, he laid on a mantel, separated by the corridor
from my cell, a fine butcher knife. It was about six feet from
the bars of my cage. It would, I thought, be a fine prize if I
could get it and take it with me back to prison. , The only
articles in my cell were the mattress, and a southern substitute
for a broom. This was made of a bunch of some kind of long
grass, the butts wound with a cord, forming the handle, the
tops forming the broom. Grasping this by the tops of the
straws, I could reach through the bars and touch the knife.
Working the knife around until the point was towards me,
and the end of the handle against the wall, I pushed the handle
of the broom against the point of the knife until I had it fast,
then drew it into the cell. When the jailor came along, the
bunch of straw was lying on the floor of the cell, the knife
concealed in it, and I was innocently eating my breakfast.

:68 THE SMOKED TANK.

"I left a knife on that mantel, who took it?" he said. I looked
up. "Who took that knife?" "I am sure there has been no
one there since you passed," I replied. He went back and
searched; came again, looked into my cell, tried the door of
the corridor, and found it locked as he left it. He remarked
to me, " You could n't get that knife if I did leave it there, I
must have taken it with me, and some of them damn niggers
have got it." The other prisoners were all negroes. He
went back and searched again, then went out, saying that he
either left that knife outside, or else the jail was haunted.

I was taken out on Monday and conveyed on the cars
to Florence, where I was searched before being sent to the
stockade, and the knife found. I told the officer who found
it, where and how I got it, and asked him to return it to that
jailor with my compliments.

Here let me remark, that from the time I was recaptured
in North Carolina, until I was delivered back at Florence, I
saw and talked with many people, both soldiers and citizens,
and received only such treatment as a soldier taken in honor-
able warfare ought to receive at the hands of his captors,
except, perhaps, being put in a felon's cell, which may have
been a matter of necessity, rather than intentional degrada-
tion.

CHAPTER XXI.

ANOTHER STOCKADE A MEANER MAN THAN WIRZ OUT

ON PAROLE THE SMUGGLED STEER NOTES FROM A

DIARY.

The return to a stockade, I had very much dreaded, be-
cause I supposed I would have to endure tortures similar to
those to which escaped prisoners brought back at Andersonville
were subjected. Whatever of fortitude I possessed was not
of the kind that enables a man to endure physical pain. I was
agreeably surprised on reaching the prison, to find that to be
hand-cuffed, and my hand-cuffs fastened to those of five or six
other prisoners and to remain in this somewhat uncomfortable
position forty-eight hours without food, was the only punish-
ment I was to receive. That was so much milder than I ex-
pected, that it really seemed no punishment at all.

The forty-eight hours having expired, one, Lieutenant
Barrett, came to release us and turn us into the stockade.
He was a brute and a coward. Noticing my gray jacket, he
swore that no damn Yankee should disgrace the uniform of
South Carolina. I remarked that it was cold weather to wear
nothing but a shirt. " Come with me," he said with brutal
oaths, "I'll get a coat for you." He led me to the dead
house, a kind of shed made with forks and poles, and covered
and enclosed with brush.

There were several corpses in there, each having on an

170

THE SMOKED TANK.

old pair of drawers or ragged pants and a worn-out blue
blouse. "There," he said, "Go in there and get a uniform;
those Yanks are in hell already and don't need any clothes."
I told him that I would rather get along without any coat than
to take one from a dead body. " None of your talk to me!"
he replied, "Go in there and get one of those blouses." He
drew and cocked his revolver as he spoke. To take a coat
from a cold, stiff corpse, was 'no easy task. I finally got one
off; the inside was white in places with lice. The sight of it
made me sick. "Put it on!" he roared. I held it up and
said, " Lieutenant, look at it, let me have a chance to clean it
first?" I stood in reach of him, and the thought that I could
knock him down and run came into my mind just as a rebel
sergeant who stood near and who had on a blue jacket spoke
up and said: "See here, lieutenant, let me take that gray
jacket and give the Yank this blue one. I'd like mighty well
to make such a trade." The brute evidently did not like to
have a witness to his intended and needless brutality, and he
reluctantly yielded.

All survivors of Florence will remember that Barrett.
They hated him worse, if anything, than they ever did Wirz.
He seemed to take delight in subjecting prisoners to every
kind of insult, humiliation, and cruelty, whenever he could find
or make an excuse for doing so. It was well for us that he
was not in full charge, as Wirz had been.

The Florence stockade was the old Andersonville stock-
ade duplicated. It was built the same way, the same dead-
line, the lay of land, creek, and swamp, all the same. It con-
tained about twelve acres, and about 12,000 prisoners. The
new prisoners brought there thought it a horrible place, but
those from Andersonville, did not complain. They had gone

THE SMOKED TANK. 171

in when there were boughs and brush enough to enable them
to build little huts, and they knew how. The rations were the
same in quantity, but better in quality. They were issued
raw, and wood furnished to cook with. Some clothing and
blankets, though not nearly enough to go round, were sent
by some sanitary relief committee from the North, and dis-
tributed. It was said that a suit of clothes and a pair of
blankets were sent for every man, but not one-tenth of that
amount was distributed to the prisoners. Colonel Iverson,
who was in command at Florence, although a strict disciplin-
arian, was, I believe, a gentleman at heart. He seemed to do
as well by us as circumstances would permit, and so far as I
know, was never charged with personal cruelty.

On being turned into the stockade, I was taken into a
shanty by two of the boys from my regiment who had kept
the blankets and cooking outfit that I had left when I got
away. Life with me for a few weeks was again about the
same as at Andersonville, except that I had some money and
could piece out my scanty rations and not actually suffer from
hunger. Money among the prisoners had become scarce, and
consequently, trade was neither brisk nor profitable. I. tried
keeping a stand but could not make anything out of it.

One morning an officer came in to get fifty prisoners to
go out on parole of honor and chop wood for the prison. I
had never chopped a cord of wood in my life, but wanted to be
in the fresh air, so I managed to get taken out as a chopper.
We were taken to the front of the colonel's tent. Our names
taken, we held up our hands and took an oath that we would
not violate our parole by going over a certain distance from
the prison, nor by failing to return at the proper time every
night. We were furnished with axes and sent to the woods.

172 THE SMOKED TANK.

The men divided into pairs, each pair had to cut two
cords per day; the timber to be cut was on some swampy
land about half a mile from the prison. I happened to be
paired with a man from Maine, a thorough woodsman and a
good chopper. He soon discovered that I could n't chop.
My hands were blistered, and I was completely tuckered at
the end of an hour. I said to him : " Partner, you see I can 't
keep up my end at this work, but there are persimmons in
the woods around here, and cornfields with beans in the corn.
I am some on beans and persimmons, and if you will do the
chopping, I will pile the wood and divide persimmons and
beans." He agreed. We had persimmons for dinner and
our pockets full of beans to take back when we went in at
night. The officers soon got on to the bean racket and
searched us every night, taking everything of that kind away.

They permitted each man to carry in with him a stick of
wood at night, and we managed to get hollow logs to carry in
and conceal our plunder in them. One evening they discovered
this game. We had come to the prison gate, laid down our
loads of wood in front of the officers' tents, and were waiting
to get our extra rations before going in. One of the men
laid down a long hollow stick, full of beans. One of the
officers was out of wood, and told his negro servant to take
one of our logs. The negro happened to take the log that
had the beans, and as he cut it, the beans rolled out and the
officer saw them. After that, the search at night included
hollow logs.

Besides the fifty choppers, one man was paroled as cap-
tain and another as clerk. Richard Wardell was the clerk.
He and myself had been companions in daily rambles after
beans and persimmons. In fact, our motto was : " Whatever

THE SMOKED TANK. 173

your hands find to take, let them .take." One day Wardell
told me that he had secured a better job, and he resigned the
clerkship in my favor. At the same time, he gave me a
pocket memoranda to keep the roll of the choppers in. This
book and a ten cent piece of script money are my only relics
of prison life.

It was now sometime in December. Commencing Christ-
mas, I kept a memoranda in this book, some of which I
copy, because they show prison life as I saw it there.

" Dec. 25, 1864. To-day is the fourth Christmas I have
spent away from home; may it be the last. The colonel
said that as it was Sunday and Christmas too, we might have
holiday and not go out to chop. Quite a favor indeed, to be
allowed to spend the principal holiday of the year in the most
miserable hole on the face of the earth. Other days, I go
out on a parole of honor to chop wood for the prison. There
are fifty-two in the chopping squad, iucluding the captain of
the squad and myself. The remuneration we receive is one
pound of meal or rice and a half pound of beef per day, which
it is my duty to draw and issue to the rest. The ration we
draw in camp is one pound of meal and a little salt, with now
and then a small quantity of beans or potatoes. I ate for break-
fast to-day, some rice and potatoes; for dinner, rice and meal
dumplings, and will have some supper if we get rations to-
day. Have just been to the gate to draw rations, but the
rebels say we cannot have any to-day, because we did not
work. There is a report here that Jeff Davis is dead, which is
generally believed. There were some more galvanized Yanks
turned in to-day. They were prisoners who took the oath of
allegiance to the confederacy and went into the rebel army,
but were so no-account that the rebels would n't have them.

(12)

174 THE SMOKED YANK.

" Dec. 26, 1864. We are out in the swamp to-day. It
rained last night, and the water is so high that the men can
scarcely work. It is as warm here to-day as it is in May in
Wisconsin. From all appearances, our days of confinement
will soon be over. It is reported that Sherman is marching
on Charleston. If he is, he will surely take it, and then it will
be easy for him to send a raid here and release us.

"Dec. 27, 1864. The rebs had their flag pole raised
to-day that the Yankee sailors have been making for them.
They made some of the prisoners raise it for them. I think it
will not be long before there will be a Yankee flag flying on
it. Our boys came a good joke on them while they were
having it raised, which will not do to be written. I succeeded
in getting Carr out to-day to make axe-helves. He will com-
mence to-morrow."

The joke was this. While the men were chopping in the
swamp, a fat steer came trotting through the woods, and
scared by the noise of the axes he stopped near a tall Ten-
nesseean who was standing on a log. The Tennesseean
reached over and tapped him behind the horns with his
ax. He dropped dead. We skinned and dressed him and
divided the meat among the choppers. Knowing that we
would be searched at night, and that hollow logs were
played out, I devised this scheme to carry in the meat. The
former captain of the squad had been sent away with some of
the sick who were to be exchanged, and 1 had been given his
place. I had two or three skilful axemen prepare logs of ash,
the kind we usually carried in, and cut them exactly
alike at each end, leaving as much uncut as could be broken.
When broken, the splintered part of the ends where they
were broken, came opposite each other. The logs were then

THE SMOKED TANK. 175

carefully split so that the splintered part of each end was
divided. The two halves were then hollowed out, making two
troughs. These were then filled with steer and then the two
parts carefully put together and fastened with small wedges
at the end, put in across the split end. We arranged enough
of these logs to carry all the steer, except the feet, head, and
such other parts as we used for dinner that day. There was
no sign of a crack in these logs, and the boys who carried
them, to prevent the discovery of the wedges that held them
together at the ends, let the ends down in the muddy places
when they stopped to rest. We were properly searched that
night, but the steer got through. Every night after that the
ash logs, that had been prepared to carry in beans, and such
other things as the boys secured, were laid in some appointed
place, and I inspected them, allowing none to go in, unless
skilfully prepared. This game was not discovered while I
was there.

'•'•Dec. 28, 1864. Rained all the forenoon. The
boys wanted to go in. Colonel Iverson said they might go,
but they would have to stay, and he would get men to chop
who could stand a little, rain. We stayed, and were all soaked
to the skin. Chopping wood in a cold chilly rain for a pint
of corn-meal a day is tough. But a pint of corn-meal, added
to our prison ration, keeps the gnawing wolf, Hunger, from
the stomach. Besides, we are allowed to take in, at night, as
much wood as we can carry, and what we get by selling, or
trading our wood, added to our double ration of meal, enables
us to live quite comfortably, as far as food and fuel go. Like
kings compared to those, the common herd, the 15,000 who
' are trying to eke out existence on a scant pint of meal and a
small stick of wood per day.

176 THE SMOKED YANK.

" We are called the chopping squad. Another squad,
called the carrying squad, 200 in number, carry into the prison
the wood that we chop. Each man has to carry on his back
a quarter of a cord, each day, of green wood an average dis-
tance of one-half mile; and much of the way over a bridge,
made of single foot logs, that crosses the swamp. The carriers
are paid the same as the choppers. They have one sergeant
in charge of each hundred; and another to act as commissary;
That is, to draw and issue the pint of meal to each man ; and
another, called Captain, who commands the squad.

"The other day some prisoners managed to flank out with
the carrying squad and escape. Whether they were aided or
not by the captain and sergeants is not known, but to-day the
Captain and sergeants are in the dungeon ; their men are left
inside, and there is an entirely new gang on the foot logs.
Succeeded to-day in getting my friend, Horace C. Carr,
paroled to make axe handles for our squad. He made six
good handles. Says he can make them faster when he gets
used to having enough to eat.

"Dec. 29, 1864.. Has been a cold, windy day. The
'Rebs' hoisted their flag on the new pole. Judging from
their actions, they cannot have much respect for, nor much
faith in their cause. They stood around the pole with their
hands in their pockets, and did not say a word, or offer to
cheer when the flag went up. The Yanks in the stockade
greeted it with loud groans and hisses. The body, or main
part of this flag, is white. In the upper corner, next the pole,
there is a red square, and across this red square there are
blue bars with white border. The bars run from each corner
diagonally, crossing in the center. On the bars there are
thirteen stars.

THE SMOKED TANK. 177

« Dec. jo, 1864. Has been a pleasant day, bright, and
balmy, and warm. This is the Sunny South that we read
about. Went with Dick Wardell on a little ramble into the
country. Guess we stretched the limits of our parole.
Stopped at a house to get a drink, and some ladies, who were
there, talked with us quite a while, and were very polite.
They asked us to come again next week, and bring a ring
that we have to sell, and an album, if we could get one. We
promised to do so. Was thinking to-day, as we returned, how
much our prison life resembles the life of brutes. The horse,
for instance, which is transferred from one place to another,
and will go to and from each new stable, seldom making an
effort to return to the old. So with us. Separated from
friends and home, we are moved about from place to place,
and still, our walk over, it seems perfectly natural to turn
toward the stockade, where we have not as good as a manger
to be stabled in. There is a rumor today that we are to be
moved to Columbia. If we are, I shall make another attempt
to gain my liberty. Would rather make my escape, and get
to our lines than receive a thousand dollars and be exchanged.

"Sat., Dec. jz, 1864. Cold and chilly, with some rain.
Old Father Time seems to be dragging a heavy load; he
moves so slow. Prospects for the new year, gloomy enough.
Could we poor mortals but lift the vail of uncertainty that
seems to hang like a pall between us and the future, we
might see beyond, brighter and happier days; and we might
see beyond (surely, some would) that which would blanch
the cheek with terror and kill the little courage we have.
Better, perhaps, the ills we have than the evils we know not
of. In an uncertain future there is a chance for hope at
least, to all. « The New Year comes to-night, mamma,' and

i78 THE SMOKED YANK.

\

this will be the fourth time it has come and found your boy
away. May God grant that ere the close of it, he may be
restored to you and home.

" New Year, 1865. Fine morning. Air clear and cold .
Ground frozen. Last New Year's I was in my snug winter
quarters at Vicksburg, enjoying, what I now recall as the com-
forts and blessings of freedom in a civilized land, and what I
th en considered the necessary hardships of a soldier's life.
Thus 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.'

"For dinner George and I had a pot pie, made of boiled
beef and flour dumplings. George, my bunk-mate, is a nurse
in a hospital. He has been getting flour for his extra ration.
I have been getting beef, instead of meal. We have been sav-
ing our flour and beef for three days, and we have had for
this place a grand dinner. We kept a blanket over the front
of our mansion while we ate, so that our hungry neighbors
might not stare at us with starving eyes."

Here follows an inventory of my worldly effects, the
chief of which was a two-dollar greenback, then an inventory
of bad habits, the chief of which was swearing; then moral
reflections and promises of reform. Don't conclude from
this that I was then a democrat.

" Jan. 2, 1865. • Out with the chopping squad, as usual.
Sold Brunt's watch today, to one of the rebel cavalrymen, for
$1.25 in money and $1.15 in trade.

" Jan. 3, 1865. Lovely day. Air as soft and balmy as
a May morning in God's country. Such days warm my blood,
and make me feel cagey. Have been thinking up plans of
escape all day. Went over to see the lady who wanted the
ring. She said she had spent all her money and couldn't
take it. Guess she isn't much of a lady, after all. Believe
she is a kind of a camp-follower.

THE SMOKED TANK. !79

" The fine weather has had a bad effect on the paroled
men. Thirteen of them skipped out today. One of them,
James Coon, belonged to our squad. I expect we will all lose
our job."

The James Coon, mentioned above, was one of the party
with whom I was handcuffed when I was brought back, after
my first attempt to escape. He had been trying for several
days to induce me to run away with him, in violation of our
parole of honor. Although I was always thinking and planning
escape I did not like the idea of violating a parole. Techni-
cally and literally considered, I had never been paroled.
When the chopping squad was first called for, and taken out
to be paroled, the rebel officer, who had charge of the matter,
formed us in double line, and then proceeded to take down
each man's name. He wrote one or two names, and then to
expediate matters, called for one of us to do the job of writing.
Several of us stepped out, and I was chosen. I stood beside
the officer and wrote each name that was given him and
repeated to me. When the role was complete he ordered the
men in the line to hold up each his right hand, and take an
oath, called the parole of honor. I stood beside the officer, fac-
ing the prisoners, and did not hold up my hand; did not think
of it at the time, and the officer did not notice me. Hence, I
was not, in fact, paroled. Coon knew of it, and used that as
an argument to persuade me to go with him. Whether it is
justifiable under any cir cumstances, for a man to violate such
an oath of honor in order to escape from captors, is a moral
problem not easy of solution. Of course, if prisoners-of-war
were receiving honorable treatment there could be no excuse
or justification for one who would violate a parole, voluntarily
taken. But just how much unnecessary, unjustifiable, and

i8o THE SMOKED TANK.

unusual cruelty a man must suffer, before he would be justified
in breaking a parole to get away, that is a question. 'Thou
shalt not kill,' is a command of God, and a law of every
civilized people. But in no civilized nation is a man required
to lose his own life rather than to take that of his assailant.

Coon started soon after we got into the woods that
morning. I was at that time Captain of the chopping squad.
As Coon had confided his plans to me I could not betray him,
although I knew that his going would, in all probability, result
in all the rest of us losing our places. That meant more than
the loss of a pint of meal a day; it meant that we must stay
in the stockade, with the rest of the prisoners, and live on a
pint of meal a day. It diminished the chances for life to all
of us. None of the choppers, except myself, knew that he
was going. He was not missed until the noon roll-call, which
I was required to make each day. Then the boys supposed
he had gone after beans, or persimmons. About 2 o'clock I
went to Colonel Iverson's quarters, and told him that one of
my men was missing at roll-call. Coon had consented that I
should report him at that time, in ordew, if possible, to save
myself from the dungeon, and the rest of the boys from being
left inside. My diary discloses the result.

CHAPTER XXII.

PAROLE OF HONOR PLAYED OUT A SCHEME FOR ESCAPE

ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR BRIBING A YANKEE

WITH A REBEL'S MONEY — i GO AFTER SHAKES AND DO

NOT RETURN.

" Jan. 4, 1865. Weather fine to-day, but it rained last
night* giving tne boys who ran away, a good chance to elude
the dogs. Our squad was not taken out today. None of the
paroled men went out. George will sleep at the hospital
hereafter, and I will be alone in the shanty. Lost $20 of
confederate money last night. It must have been stolen.

"Had a very strange dream. Thought I had, in some
way, escaped and got home. When I entered the house all
our family, and uncle's family, and many of the young people
of the neighborhood were there. They all gathered around
me and began to talk, and tried to shake hands with me, but I
pushed them all aside, and ran to mother and kissed her, and
was so overcome with joy that I lay my head in her lap and
wept for a long time. Then I shook hands with the rest,
telling them it was the happiest day of my life. It would
have been.

" Jan. 5, 1865. Parole of honor played out. New
squads are being organized. None of the old hands are
allowed to go. Colonel Iverson came in to see about the new
men for parole. I asked him to let me have charge of the

i8a THE SMOKED TANK.

choppers again. He refused, but said I might go as a
chopper, if I liked. I told him " that I could not chop a cord
of wood a day, and that if he did not let me out as before, I
would try to escape. He said : * All right, my boy, you are
welcome to try.' "

I did try. Although I wrote memoranda each day I
could not write everything, for fear that if I should escape I
might be captured with the book upon me.

'•'•'Jan. 6, 1865. The 'Rebs' took out the new squads
yesterday afternoon, and three of the prisoners ran away.
They do not take any out today on account of the rain, they
say. I have a kind of presentiment that a change, for better
or for worse, is about to take place in my fortunes. Am
afraid it is for the worse. Misfortunes never come singly,
they say, and they seem to have begun coming to me when I
lost my job outside.

" Jan. 7, 1865. No better prospects, as yet, for the
future, though there is considerable talk of 'general ex-
change.' Have been thinking of trying to get out of this
infernal hole. If I could get out on parole to work, could stay
more contentedly, but I can 't stand the pressure here. George
has been sick, and is now a patient in the hospital.

" Jan. <?, 1865. Ten months a prisoner. Am going to
try to get out the first dark night.

" fan. p, 1865. Nothing particular transpired today.
Tried to get the lieutenant to let me out on parole again, but
he would not, and so I picked out a place to climb over the
stockade."

The truth is that while I was out on parole I had studied
out a plan for escape, and had been busy working on it from
the day my parole ceased. I had noticed that some of the

THE SMOKED TANK. ^3

paroled men who worked in the hospital, and about the com-
missary department of the prison, helping to carry in and issue
the rations, and to do other work that required them to pass
out and in frequently, were provided with passes. I had
noticed these passes, and believed I could make one that
would let me pass an ordinary guard, especially after dark.
The passes were written in ink, on the face, in a hand easily
imitated, and were stamped on the back with a red ink stamp.
My plan was to intimate the hand-writing on the front
and make a stamp on the back with a red pencil. The first
thing to do was to get the pencil. I thought that among
fifteen thousand Yankee prisoners, I could either find one or
get it made. So I began to inquire for one. Soon found that
it would be hard to find, so I began systematically to inquire,
going through the whole of one thousand or detachment
before trying the next. On the second day, I found a man
who had a short red pencil and secured it. Then I had to get
some one who had a pass, to lend it to me so that I could
learn to intimate it. My recollection is that I got my friend
Wardell to get a pass for me. Do not remember whether I
told him what I wanted to do or not. Anyway I had one of
the genuine passes and set about learning to counterfeit. I
began first on the stamp and have now in my note book from
which these memoranda are copied, my first effort to make
the stamp. It is in this form but in red :

Cheatham was the name of one of the rebel officers.
While I sat in my shebang, as we called it, at work on this

184 THE SMOKED TANK.

stamp, it occurred to me that some man among those who had
such passes might be induced to let me use a pass to get out
with and then send it in by some other man.

I knew of no man who had such a pass who would be
likely to trust a stranger with it. No one with whom I was
on terms of intimacy had one, and to ask a stranger to do for
me what might cost him his life, seemed to be useless. I had
nothing to offer as a bribe, except a few dollars in confed., as
we called the rebel money. My only friend in the camp who
had money, was Wardell. The moment I thought of him in
that connection, I knew that the problem was solved. Dick
Wardell, we called him, I suppose Richard was his name,
was then a handsome young man, below medium height, but
well built and in every way a clean-cut, shrewd Yankee, prob-
ably twenty-five years old. He was one of the chopping
squad when we were first taken out, but he soon obtained
what he thought a better thing.

One of the rebel officers took a fancy to Dick and hired
him to stay in the stockade and exchange confederate money
for greenbacks. At that time a dollar of our money was
worth twenty to thirty dollars of rebel money, at Charleston.
The rebel officers were buying greenbacks in the stockade
and selling them at Charleston. They were paying about
ten for one. To facilitate business, they had forbidden the
rebel sutler who had a store in the prison, taking any green-
backs from the prisoners in payment for his goods. The
V ankees who had greenbacks must first exchange for confed.
before they could trade with the sutler.

I called on Dick Wardell : " Dick," said I, " would you
like to get away? "

" You bet your bottom dollar," said Dick.

THE SMOKED TANK.

185

" Haven't you got a roll of confed. that belongs to a reb?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

" About fifteen hundred."

"Would you be willing to buy your way out with it?"

Dick was an honest fellow and he didn't at first take
kindly to the scheme. We talked about it a long time. I
told him about my first attempt, how we would be helped by
the negroes and showed him on an old map, that Sherman
was heading toward Savannah, where we could meet his army
without having to go far. We did not then know that
Sherman had already taken Savannah. In fact, 1 persuaded
Wardell that as all was fair in love and war, if he could get
away by using the rebel's money, he ought to do it. Once in
the notion, he took hold with a will. He knew a Yankee
sergeant who was working in the hospital. The hospital was
about an acre of ground in one corner of the stockade, and
partitioned off from the remainder of the prison by posts with a
rail on top. This sergeant and his squad of about ten men,
were all on parole. They were employed building sheds in the
hospital (so called) for the sick to lie under. These sheds
were made by putting forked logs in the ground, poles on the
forks, one being a ridge pole and the others lower so as to
form a roof when covered with shakes or long shingles.
Other men were employed to cut the forks and poles and make
the shakes in the woods. The sergeant and his men carried
them from the woods into the hospital corner of the stockade
and put up the sheds.

In order that these men might pass out and in at the
hospital gate, they were provided with passes. This ser-
geant agreed to pass Wardell and myself out for twelve

186 THE SMOKED TANK.

hundred dollars in confederate money. Early on the next
morning after this agreement was made, Wardell and I, in
order to get into the hospital, procured a stretcher and found
a sick man to carry in. Having gained admission to the
hospital we found that the sergeant had taken one of his men
into his confidence and that we were to use that man's pass.

This plan of escape, may to the reader, seem quite tame,
requiring neither nerve nor daring for its execution. To step
into line with eight or ten other men, receive a pass, and then
walk out of the gate, passing a guard who would merely look
at your pass, did seem a simple and an easy thing to do. It
was neither simple nor tame nor easy. That guard had a
loaded gun. His instructions were to shoot without halting,
any prisoner he saw attempting to escape. We were told
that a furlough was granted as a reward, to every guard who
killed a prisoner attempting to escape. We did not know
how many times the guard on duty that morning had been
there before. If he had been there before, he might notice a
change of one man in the number entitled to pass. Should
he detect us in our scheme, he might carry out instructions
and shoot us then and there. If he did not shoot, but merely
handed us over to the officer on duty, hanging by the thumbs
and thirty days in the dungeon on scant bread and water,
would surely follow. Few men endured these tortures who
were not by them so broken down in health and spirit that
they soon after succumbed to the ordinary hardships of the
prison life.

It was a dangerous plan, too, for the sergeant. It was a
violation of the parole under which he was entrusted with the
passes. Death was supposed to be the punishment for violat-
ing a parole. We thought of and talked of all these things

THE SMOKED TANK. X87

that morning, the sergeant, Wardell and myself. More than
twenty years have passed and the vividness with which I
recall the incidents of that morning, is evidence to me that
one at least of the three had need to summon up his courage.

The sense of personal danger that one feels under
such circumstances, is not the sole cause of agitated feeling.
No ambitious student, however carefully trained, can take the
rostrum on his graduating day, without more or less of fear
and trembling. Many a lawyer, even after long practice,
tries in vain to sleep the night before an important trial. They
are not of common mould who can perform a tragical act on
the stage of life without perturbance of soul. The little boy
giving his name on that first day at school, the maiden
approaching the altar, on her bridal day, the soldier standing
in line of battle with the enemy in full view, it comes alike
to all.

Aside from the danger involved, this was to me a crit-
ical moment. For ten months, my thoughts by day, my
dreams by night, had been of escape. I was about to try.
Succeed, and home and mother, father, brother, and sisters,
and all that life gives promise of to a boy of nineteen, were
before me; fail, and tortures and hunger were sure, and per-
haps starvation, sickness, and death.

The sergeant was very anxious to have Wardell go first,
because Wardell had the money which he was to hand over
when he was on the outside. Wardell insisted on my going
first, because I had escaped once, and he thought that I could
make a second attempt with greater coolness than one who
had never tried, so I stepped into the line and took the pass.

There were nurses "and patients of the hospital and work-
men all around us, who knew nothing of what was going on.

1 88 THE SMOKED YANK.

The rest of the men with passes did not know. It seemed
to me that every man around me must see in my face all that
was in my mind. The guard, to my immense relief, took no
more notice of me than of the others. As had been arranged
between us, I went to work carrying in poles and shingles
with the others. After we had gone out and come in two or
three times, the guard concluded that he knew us and ceased
to look at the passes. Then the sergeant went out with me,
and I gave him back the pass which he was to take in and
give to Wardell, while I was to remain out until Wardell
should join me. It would not do, however, for Wardell to
attempt to pass the same guard. He must wait until that
guard's two hours were up and another took his place. I sat
under a tree waiting; saw the relief guard go round, was
expecting every moment to see Wardell come through the
gate, when I saw the sergeant coming out. I knew in a
moment that something had gone wrong. His agitation was
to me evident, from the manner of his walk. When he
got to me, he was so badly scared that he could hardly speak.
"You must come back in," he said. " Here take the pass, go
get a load of shakes and come right in." I ask him what the
trouble was. He said that we were found out; that an
officer had come into the hospital after Wardell just as
Wardell was about to come out.

What had transpired, I do not know. I have never since
seen or heard from either that sergeant or Wardell. It
occurred to me, however, that the officer for whom Wardell
was exchanging money, had gone into the stockade to see
Wardell on business and had been told that Wardell had
taken a sick man to the hospital, and that the officer had very
naturally gone there to find him. Anyway, I said to the ser-

THE SMOKED YANK. 189

geant that I needed no pass to come back in. The guard
never asked for a pass from a man who wanted to go in. I
told him to go in and I would go to the woods after the load
of shakes and we would try again some other day. He went
in and I went to the woods, not to get shakes, but to shake
from my feet the dust, from my life, the horrors of that
prison pen.

('3)

CHAPTER XXIII.

BLOOD HOUNDS IN SIGHT WAKE UP THE WRONG FAMILY

GENTLEMEN (VERY LITTLE) OF COLOR 1 PLAY THAT I

AM A SLAVE OWNER AND TALK WITH REBEL SOLDIERS.

" Jan. 10, 1864. I am a free man today, but don't know
how long I shall have the good fortune to remain so. Last
night was a dark night and I had no trouble in climbing over
the stockade. It is noon now and has commenced to rain."

Such is the entry made in my pocket diary on the day
that I went to the woods for my last load of shakes. So
written for the purpose of misleading my captors, should I
have been recaptured. When I left the sergeant as before
narrated, I walked leisurely toward the woods, meeting many
of the paroled men and some of the rebel soldiers. No one
said anything indicating suspicion. Some of the rebel soldiers
knew me as captain of the chopping squad and probably sup-
posed I was still out in that capacity. Once in the woods, I
avoided meeting anyone and walked rapidly toward the north.
When I had gone what I thought to be about a mile, I went
into the swamp, got into the creek that flowed through it and
waded up the stream what I judged to be another mile. By this
means, I hoped to avoid leaving any scent for the pack of blood
hounds that were taken every evening around the prison about
two miles out. These hounds were so trained that they would
take and follow the track of any prisoner who during the day

THE SMOKED TANK. igi

had crossed the limits of the parole. As I waded along in the
water thinking I was far enough out to be safe and feeling
pretty tired, for wading up stream in water, and cold water at
that, is hard work, it began to rain. Knowing that a hard
rain would as effectually remove all scent from my tracks as a
running stream, I left the water. I sat down with my back
against a large tree, to rest. To keep off the rain, I had
secured a large piece of bark and leaned it against the tree
and sat under it. Sitting there protected from the fast falling
rain, I wrote the notes last quoted. Had just finished when I
heard behind me, voices of men, barking of dogs and the
sound of horses feet. Looking carefully, I saw through the
thick woods, the squad of rebel cavalry and the pack of blood
hounds, passing along a road that crossed the creek in sight
of where I sat. Had I kept on wading up the creek, I would
surely have been so close to them at the crossing, as to have
made my discovery by the dogs almost certain. They
crossed the creek and stopped at a farm house that stood on a
hill, a quarter of a mile or so beyond and I crossed the dan-
gerous line behind the dreaded hounds and went rejoicing on
my way, the greatest danger to the escaping prisoner from a
rebel prison, safely passed. The rain came down in torrents,
relieving me from all anxiety in regard to the dreaded hounds.
I traveled as nearly as I could tell, North and West, intending
to strike the railroad that runs West from Florence, so as to
have some guide to go by in the night. Soon after dark, I
came to a plantation where there were negro quarters, and
after some reconnoitering, I entered one, made myself known,
and was received with generous hospitality. A guard was
immediately placed so that no man, woman, or child of my
race, might come upon me unawares, and I was warmed and

192 THE SMOKED T4,NK.

I

fed in truly chivalrous style by the grateful negroes. Grate-
ful then, for blessings only hoped for, and fearful, lest their
deeds of gratitude might be discovered, and bring them
present woe.

Having rested, and had my clothing well dried, and my
shoes dried and softened with grease, I resumed my way
along the railroad track. Came into Lynchburg about day-
light, and there saw an old "Uncle" getting ready to kill
hogs. He was building up a great log-heap of dry logs, with
"fat" pine for kindling, and putting stones among the logs,
with which to heat the water to scald the hogs, just as I had
helped to do often at home. He no sooner learned that I
was an escaped Yankee than he urged me to " get away from
hyer, young Massa. Too many folks gwine to be around
hyer soon." But he told me how to find another black man,
whom I could trust, and to him I went. He took me to a
safe place in the woods; built for me a nice fire beside a big
log; then brought me food, and quilts to wrap up in; cared
for me as tenderly as a mother does for her sick boy; and
then left me there to sleep. My diary reads:

'.' Jan. 77, 1865. It rained until sundown. I was com-
pletely soaked. Stopped about 10 o'clock and got my clothes
partially dried, then came four miles this side of Lynchburg.
It was daylight when I stopped, completely fagged out; was
so tired that I could not have walked another mile. My feet
are blistered, and I am stiff and sore all over. Made a fire in
the woods, and have stayed by it all day. Shall try to reach
Sumpterville, twenty-two miles, to-night."

I dared not mention, in my notes, the stranger friend who
built the fire, and bathed my feet, and rubbed my swollen
joints, and brought me food and bed, lest some mishap might

THE SMOKED TANK. I93

cause his left hand to know what his right hand had been
doing.

That night 1 followed the wagon-road to Sumpterville.
Nearing the town, and daylight coming on, I began to look
for some negro quarter, where I could make myself known,
and secure the usual assistance. At length, I saw, near the
road, two rows of negro quarters. I went among them,
searching for one, the inmates of which were up. There was
a stillness about them that made me feel suspicious. Negroes
are early risers, and you seldom find them all asleep on any
large plantation. At length, finding no signs of any one
being awake, I rapped on the door of one of the houses.
After repeated rapping some one called out: "Who's
there?" It was no negro's voice. "Who's there?" came
again, and evidently the voice of a white woman. I thought
best to answer, so I said : " I am a soldier, and have lost my
way." Then I heard: "John, John, wake up, there is some
one at the door." When John awoke, that woman must have
had a hard time making him believe that there had been any-
body at the door. I was wretchedly tired, and my feet were
painfully sore, but the first few minutes, after leaving that
door, I in some way, got over a good deal of ground. I
afterward learned that those negro quarters were occupied
by the families of poor white soldiers, who were being cared
for by the town, and that some of the soldiers were at home
on furlough.

Fearing pursuit, I left the highway and ran off across the
fields. As daylight was coming on, it was necessary for me
to find a hiding place for the day, so I made for the first
plantation in sight, a large one. There I found the usual
negro quarters on each side of the street, leading from the

194 THE SMOKED YANK.

planter's house to the fields. Partly to get as far from white
people as possible, and partly because there was smoke
coming from the chimney, I knocked on the door of a house
at the far end of the row. The door was opened by a
gentleman of color, but not very much color; probably an
octoroon, but as white as myself. Entering, there sat another
gentleman of very pale color, dressed in broadcloth, a ring on
his finger, a gold watch and chain — a regular dandy — smok-
ing a finely flavored cigar, by the fire-place. Well, I thought
to myself, as I accepted a proffered cigar and took a seat, this
is a pretty kettle of fish; I am in a scrape now, sure. In
order to find out how the land lay I kept the two men talking.
They were brothers. One was the overseer of the planta-
tion, the other a clerk in a store at Charleston, out on a visit.
They were slaves. Gathering from their conversation that
their sympathies were on the right side I made myself and
my wants known, and was at once carried off to a safe hiding
place in the woods. To build a fire they thought might lead
to discovery, so they furnished me with blankets to wrap
myself up in while I slept. These men thought the best way
for me to get beyond Sumpterville was to go straight through.
They said: "Let one of our black boys walk behind you,
just as though he was following his master, and no one will
suspect you of being a Yankee." There were two battalions
of rebel soldiers camped near the town, and they were
roaming around everywhere. As I was as likely to meet
them one place as another, I took the overseer's advice, and
that night I started out, followed by my guide. No negro
driver ever appeared less afraid of being noticed than I did,
as I stalked through Sumpterville that evening, closely fol-
lowed by my black slave. I had so little fear of detection

THE SMOKED TANK. 195

that I walked up to the camp-fire of some of the soldiers,
smoked a pipe of tobacco, and talked with them some time,
taking care, however, to keep some of them talking all the
time, and tp leave as soon as I had got all the information I
wanted. These soldiers were on their way to the front to stop
Sherman, their train being delayed by the washing away
of a bridge. My guide took me a few miles beyond the town
and left me with another negro, with whom I stayed the rest
of the night and the next day, in order to get my blistered
feet in better condition.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A PRESSING INVITATION 1 PADDLE A CANOE AM CAUGHT

IN A "NIGGAH HOUSE" —A CHIVALROUS LADY PLEADS
MY CAUSE A NIGHT IN A SWAMP.

" Jan. 14, 1865. Did not reach the Santee river last
night; it was farther than I thought. I had several narrow
escapes, met ten or twelve soldiers at one time; believe they
were deserters from Charleston. Met an officer in the road
about one o'clock; came upon him unexpectedly and was some-
what confused, but managed to answer his questions though
he did not seem to be very well satisfied with my answers.
His name was Captain Beetsom."

< Was walking along a well-traveled road, plantation
fields each side, and a full moon shining very brightly, when
I met the officer mentioned. I heard what I supposed to be
two negroes talking in a fence corner, and not being afraid of
negroes, did not seek to avoid them. Coming to where they
stood talking in the corner of a rail fence, one proved to be a
rebel officer.

I said, "Howd'y do;" and would have passed along, but
the officer indicated an almost comanding desire for further
conversation, and I had either to stop or to run.

He wanted to know where I was going, why I traveled
so late, where I belonged, etc. I told him I belonged to
Major 's battalion, giving the name of one of the

THE SMOKED TANK. ,9?

majors whose command was at Sumpterville, that we were on
the way to Branchville when our train was delayed by the
bridge being washed away; that my father lived across the
Santee; that I had obtained leave to visit my home, and meet
the regiment at Branchville.

"What is your father's name?" I gave it. "Where
does he live?" "Ten miles beyond the ferry." "In what
parish?" That was a stunner. I didn't know what he meant
by parish nor the name of any. Unconsciously I began to
stammer. He instantly, and probably as unconsciously, sought
to assist my impediment of speech by speaking the names of
two. Thus assisted, I easily gave one of the names.

His suspicions seemed to be allayed, and we fell into
pleasant conversation. Talked of the war and its prospects,
of Sherman and his probable movements. He told me of his
experience in the Atlanta campaign. How he had been
wounded and was now at home on sick leave. Even removed
his clothes and showed me where the ball went in, just above
his pants pocket, and where it came out.

When I proposed to go, he very cordially asked me to
spend the rest of the night at his house. Couldn't possibly
do so; must get to my father's early in the morning and to
Branchville the next night. " But you can 't cross the river
before the ferry goes," he said, " and I will take you there on
horse-back as soon as we have breakfast and in plenty of time
for the ferry. It only makes one trip a day." Thus he
pressed me to stay in the kindest and most hospitable manner.
I dared not risk it, and still I had no good excuse to offer. I
was in a dilemma, but I cut it short by thanking him for his
courtesy and walking off.

Out of sight, my walk became a run, which I kept up for

198 THE SMOKED YANK.

several miles, then stopped to listen. With my ear to the
ground, I heard the patter of a horse's feet; got behind a tree
and soon after along came the genial officer on his horse, a
large revolver in one hand. He passed by and I followed
him. Although he rode at a brisk canter, I kept close enough
to hear his horse, believing it safer to do so than to run the
risk of being ambushed.

A few miles further on, he came to a plantation, rode up
to the house and aroused the planter. I slipped up close
enough to hear all that was said. He had come to the con-
clusion that I was a deserter. The two men woke up the
negroes at the one negro house and searched the house. My
pursuer then concluded that he had passed me on the road,
and went back. The planter went into his house and I was
soon in the hands of my friends in the negro quarters. One
of these took me to where the ferry crossed the Santee.

The streams at that time were all swollen by the heavy
winter rains. The swamp that bordered the Santee on that
side was full of water so that the ferry had to make a trip of
three miles. I was concealed near the ferry landing, and
some negroes who were going across understood my situation
and were to make it all right with the ferryman who was a
negro. The ferry came over about ten in the morning bring-
ing a rebel officer on horse-back who had pistols in the hols-
ters of his saddle. I kept out of his sight until he rode away,
them came from my hiding place. When the ferry was about
to start, another white man arrived on horse-back who wanted
to cross also. This man was a surgeon in the rebel army.

The ferry started, the old ferryman poling the boat along in
water three or four feet deep, following the opening among the
trees made by the submerged wagon-road. We had not gone far

THE SMOKED TANK. I99

before the rebel began to ask me questions. I told him about
the same story that I had told the officer in the road the night
before. The ferryman and the other negroes who were cross-
ing and who were helping to push the boat, heard what the
rebel was saying, and were evidently alarmed.

There was a canoe or dug-out tied to the side of the boat.
The old ferryman spoke to me, saying : " Say da', young Massa,
can you paddle a canoe? " "I reckon I can," said I. "Then
I'se mighty glad if you'd git into dat ar' canoe an' keep it
from gittin' smashed up 'twixt de boat an' de trees."

I got into the canoe, well knowing that the darky had
planned to get me away from the rebel. I paddled ahead,
gradually drawing away from the ferry until .a turn in the
road put me out of sight, then I paddled with all my might.
Reaching the swollen and swift-flowing river, I did not feel so
safe in the easily tipped canoe. Money would n't have hired
me to attempt a crossing in such a craft. It was getting dark
too. There seemed no other way to do, so I ventured into
the rushing water and safely landed on the other side.

Fearing the rebel had regarded me with suspicion, and
desiring to mislead him, I pulled the canoe out of the water
some distance below the road, and hid it in the brush, then
concealed myself near enough to the landing to hear what
might be said when the boat arrived. The way that old
negro lashed me with his tongue when he got over and saw
no boat, was amusing. The rebel, too, had thought all the
time that I was a deserter. When he rode off, I came out as
the smart old darky had expected me to do, and he explained
with great gusto how he had done " all dat cussin' jus' to t'row
dat white ossifer off from de scent; knowed all de time dat

200 THE SMOKED TANK.

you would turn up roun' hyer sumwheres, soon as dat odder
white man done got oute'n de way."

It will be noticed that in my notes taken as I traveled,
little reference is made to the assistance received from colored
friends. They furnished me with food, concealed me in some
place where I could sleep during the day either in secluded
woods by a fire, or covered up in a fodder or gin house. To
have mentioned these things, would have exposed them to
possible discovery and punishment. My notes of that cross-
ing, are as follows:

" Jan. /J, 1865. Did not travel last night. Heard that
the swamp was up so that I could not get to the river on foot.
Came to the river to-day and had to wade through water up
to my shoulders to get here. Some negroes are here who
have been waiting two days to get across. They say the
ferry is three miles long, and that the boat will not be over
until to-morrow.

" Jan. 16, 1865. The boat came over to-day. A rebel
officer came over with it; managed to escape his notice.
Just as we were about to start a white man, a surgeon in the
rebel army, rode up. Did not see him in time to get out of
the way, and had to cross over with him. He asked me some
troublesome questions, but did not make much."

Having obtained directions from the negroes, I started
on toward Branchville.

I walked rapidly until about i o'clock, when, being tired
and hungry, and seeing a light in a negro quarter that I was
passing, I concluded to rest and get something to eat.

In answer to my rap on the door, "Who's da?" came in
a woman's voice. "Is that you, aunty?" I said, "Where is
uncle, I want to see him." " Who's you prowlin' around dis

THE SMOKED TANK. 2OI

time o' night?" I told her that I was a white man, and had
lost my way. She said her man had gone to a « white folks' "
house, and that I could go over there to see him. I gave her
to understand that I did not want to be seen by any white
man, and, if I had told her why, it would have been all right.
I prevailed on her to open the door so that I might sit by the
fire until uncle got back. I sat down by the fire, when she
remarked, « Dat fire 's gittin' mighty low," and went out. I
heard her chopping with an axe and supposed she would be
in presently to replenish the fire.

The next thing I heard was, " Come out of that niggah

quarter! you damn white - - of a ." I opened the door

and there in the moonlight, twenty yards away, stood a young
man in rebel uniform, with a double-barreled shot-gun in his
hands.

As I stood in the door-way, he gave vent to a perfect
volume of oaths and vile epithets, such as — "Come out of
that'ar niggah house, or I will blow your d — n head off!"
Putting on much more assurance than I felt, I said, "You had
better find out who your are talking to, sir, before you use
such language. If you are so keen to shoot, you better go to
the front and try it on the Yanks."

Somewhat cooled down, he then asked me to give an ac-
count of myself. I gave him the Sumpterville delayed-train
story.

"What regiment does your battalion belong to?" he said.
This was another stunner. I did not remember to have heard
the number of the regiment. Answering at random, "The
37th South Carolina," I said. "The h— 1 you do! There
aint no 37th South Carolina. Can't play that game on me; I
arrest you, sir,"

202 THE SMOKED TANK.

I stuck to my story, and intimated that a South Carolina
soldier must be lamentably ignorant of what was going on in
the state, if he didn't know that there was a 37th South Caro-
lina. I told him that if he even had this year's almanac in the
house, I could prove it to him. He took me into the house,
saying that he was going to Orangeburg after breakfast, and
that he would take me along and let me convince the provost
marshal that there was a 37th South Carolina.

We sat down by the fire. I looked the young man over
and concluded that if he undertook to take me to Branchville
as he proposed, in a one-horse buggy and guard me with a
shot-gun, there would be trouble on, the way. Still the best
plan for me was to get out of the scrape by strategy if pos-
sible.

This young man belonged to the rebel cavalry. He was
at home on a furlough, and was going to Orangeville that day
to get married. His brother had left about one o'clock so as
to reach a station in time for an early train that would take
him back to his regiment at Richmond. The negro man had
gone with this brother. The negro woman took me for one of
the rebel deserters that infested the neighborhood, often rob-
bing chicken-roosts and pig pens, and making themselves a
terror to the negroes generally. She had chopped with the
axe to make believe, then ran to the white folks' house where
the people were up to "speed the parting guest," and told
them that there was one of the deserters in her house.

The soldier was right about there being no South Caro-
lina regiment numbered thirty-seven. There were more than
thirty-seven regiments in the army from South Carolina, but
as each city was ambitious to put the first regiment in the
field, there was a ist South Carolina from Charleston, a rst

THE SMOKED YANK. 2O3

from Columbia, and so on. A 2d, from several places, and
so with each number. So, at least, this soldier said. Still, I
persistently stuck to my story; claimed that my regiment was
organized in the northeast corner of the state, was made up
lately of home-guards, old men and boys, and I believe he
finally concluded that it was possible for him to be wrong.

We sat there talking until nearly breakfast time. Then
the young soldier taking his shot-gun went out on the porch,
and as he stood there giving some directions about the horse
he was to drive to Orangeburg, his sister-in-law came into the
room.

She was the wife of the soldier who had left at one
o'clock, and mother of a bright little girl of five or six years
whom I held on my knee and had been telling stories to
about the Yankees.

The lady expressed the hope that I would have no trouble
in making everything right when I got to Orangeburg. Said
she was sorry to have her brother-in-law take a prisoner with
him when he was going to meet his bride.

Taking my cue from her sympathetic mood, I begged her
to intercede for me with her brother-in-law. I told her I only
had verbal permission from my officers to leave the command.
That the provost marshal would not believe my story; that he
would hold me under arrest. That my officers would be sent
on from Branchville to the front, and there would be no tell-
ing how long I would be held as a prisoner in a guard-house.
That my people, my mother and sisters, would be sure to hear
of it, and they would be sorely distressed. That I would
much rather the news went home that I was shot than that I
had been arrested as a deserter. I assured her, with tears in
my eyes, on the word and honor of a gentleman that there

204 THE SMOKED TANK.

was nothing I so much desired as to get to the front where I
could fight for my country.

The last was truth; but oh, the lies I told that lady. Was
I excusable under the circumstances? Ask some moral phil-
osopher. Let him reason it out. To me, life was sweet, lib-
erty dear. If conscience is any guide, mine at that moment
held me guiltless of all wrong. A man may talk about con-
science while he steals your spoons, but I doubt if such honest
tears as mine were can be made to trickle down his cheeks
while he is doing that which conscience holds to be wrong.

Tears came to the lady's eyes, too. She went out on the
porch. I heard, but cannot recall exactly her words. As I
stood there listening, it occurred to me that here was a sample
of that Southern chivalry which I had always believed in but
seldom had a glimpse of. He tried to refuse. She would
not let him.

"Why, John," she said, "You must let him go. Think
of his mother and sisters. What would your mother and
your sisters say? Think of your Maggie, John, and this is
your wedding day. Would you have this boy curse you on
your wedding day? Oh, you must let him go." Then her
arms went around his neck; there was one long, resounding
kiss, and she brought in the gun.

The soldier followed her, laughing. He said he sup-
posed he would have to let me off, as there was no use trying
to refuse a woman. We all sat down to breakfast. That
over, the soldier invited me to ride with him to where the
Branch ville road turned off from that to Orangeville, which I
did. There was no hypocracy in the thanks I tried to express
to the lady of that Southern home as I took her hand at
parting.

THE SMOKED TANK. 2O5

At the forks of the road, I parted with the young soldier
wishing him joy at his wedding, and thanking him warmly for
his kindness. "Don't think you have much cause for thank-
ing me," he said, meaning that to his sister-in-law, I owed my
release. "Well, you have both given me more cause for
thanks than you are aware of," I said, as I turned from him to
conceal the smile I could not suppress.

No boy just out of school, no bird just freed from a cage,
ever whistled or sung with a gayer heart than mine, as I went
merrily on my way that bright frosty morning.

For a while the road led me through a timbered country,
but at length I came to where the road was a lane, with
cultivated fields on each side. Some distance ahead I saw
plantation houses, and concluded to get by them by walking
through the corn field on the opposite side.

Nearing these houses I saw a white man on the porch, and
perceived at the same time that he was watching me. Pres-
ently he shouted and motioned to me to come to him. I
kept on, as though I had neither seen nor heard. Then he
called to some one to loose the dogs, and, gun in hand,
started on the run In my direction.

Naturally fleet of foot and long-winded, I was soon in the
woods, beyond that corn field, and glad to find a swamp there.
Wet ground at first, then a little water, then ankle deep.
Straight on I ran, knowing that no ordinary white man could
keep me in sight, and that dogs could not track me through
water. When I had gone far enough to feel perfectly safe I
climbed into some wild vines, where I could rest and be out
of the water, and there I stayed until dark.

That was a hard night. It rained, and was pitch dark.
I could not see the trees; had to feel for them with a stick.

('4)

206 THE SMOKED YANK.

I fell over logs, got tangled in vines, pricked by thorns, and
scratched by briars.

Toward morning, guided by the sound of crowing cocks,
I got out of the swamp, and found a negro quarter. Woefully
tired, famished for food, wet to the skin, with torn and muddy
clothes, and bleeding wounds, I was surely a pitiable object
as I stood by the pitch-pine fire those trusty darkies built
for me.

CHAPTER XXV.

I STEAL MULES, AND TAKE A RIDE A WELL-LAID SCHEME

"GANG AFT AGLEE" — SOME DANGEROUS PLACES

CROSSING THE SALKAHATCHIE.

That day, January 17, I was furnished with some dry
clothes, was well warmed and fed, and laid away in a fodder
house while my shoes and pants were repaired. Was con-
siderably disgusted to learn that I was only three miles from
the place where the man took after me in the corn field. I
had spent the night traveling in more or less of a circle, in the
swamp that bordered Cattle Creek. Was now twelve miles
southeast of Branchville. Desired to cross the Edisto river.
Heavy rains had swollen all the streams, and filled the swamps
with water. All the streams in that part of South Carolina
run from northwest to southeast. As I was making for
Savannah, my route lay across all the streams and swamps.
Nearly all of the roads ran parallel with the streams. The
inhabitants of the country were in a state of excitement and
alarm, apprehending an invasion of the state by Sherman's
army. Rebel soldiers were being collected at Branchville
and other points, and preparations made to meet the invader.
The masters feared that their negroes would rise en masse,
and go to meet their deliverers. Desertions from the rebel
troops were frequent. The ferries and bridges on all important
streams were guarded, and mounted patrols were upon all the

2o8 THE SMOKED YANK.

highways. Under these circumstances it was exceedingly
difficult for me to pass through the country. Even the
negroes, always so willing to furnish food, or to travel at
night as guides, were afraid to stir out by night, lest they be
caught by the patrols, and killed for example. I spent two
days and nights trying to find some unguarded place, where I
could cross the Edisto.

Finally, I met a young negro, who told me there was
no guard on the bridges that crossed the two Edisto rivers
above where they came together. He said the water was so
deep between the two bridges that no guard was necessary.
This boy had daring enough for anything. He wanted to
take me across these bridges, which he said we could reach
by wading and swimming, but as it was ten miles from his
home to the nearest bridge, he was afraid he could not make
the trip and get back in one night.

I suggested that we borrow a couple of his master's
mules and ride. He was willing to run the risk of being
caught putting the mules into the stable when he should
return, but was not willing to risk being caught trying to take
them out. So, about u o'clock that night, while the negro
boy was conveniently posted so as to give a signal, in case of
danger, I slipped into the barn and brought out a span of
mules.

We had to ride bareback, because the saddles were kept
at the house, where they could not be easily obtained. I had
wondered how this boy expected to pass the patrol on the
road, traveling this way. Usually when I traveled with a
negro for guide he walked ahead, and there was little danger
of our meeting any white man whom his quick eye, or attentive
ear did not first discover, I asked this boy how we were to

THE SMOKED TANK. 2O9

get by the patrols on mules. "Don' you gib yourself no
troubble 'bout dat, young Massa; ain't gwine to meet no
patrol on dat road what Pse gwine to trabble. You stick to
dat ar mule, and I'se gwine to land you safe on todder side o'
bofe dem ar Edisto ribbers." I did stick to the mule, and
there was little danger of meeting patrols on the road he
"trabbled."

It was through fields, over fences, and through by-paths
in the woods. How he could tell where he was going in the
dark, puzzled me. We were several times in water that
caused the mules to swim before we reached the first bridge,
and had to swim in several places between the bridges, but he
landed me safe across both Edistos and did not leave me until
he had turned me over to another negro two miles beyond.

Riding bare-back on a mule was to me a new kind of ex-
ercise. The parts that rested on the mule were so badly ex-
coriated that for several days I could not walk in a natural
manner.

The next night, I passed through Midway and stopped
with a negro who was coachman for his master, and was go-
ing to cross the Salkahatchie to bring his master home. This
river was also guarded. Troops under the rebel Hardee, and
the cavalry general, Wheeler, were making preparations to
meet and oppose Sherman should he attempt to come that
way. The greatest uncertainty prevailed as to what route
Sherman would take. The course that seemed to be best for
me, was to go toward Savannah as rapidly as possible, pro-
vided I could get through the lines of the enemy.

I anticipated difficulty in getting over the Salkahatchie,
for along that stream the rebels were preparing to make a
stand. Not only bridges and causeways were guarded, but

210 THE SMOKED TANK.

there was also a line of pickets close enough to be in sight of
each other walking their beats all along the stream. When
this negro proposed to take me in a close carriage through
this army of rebels and across a guarded bridge and cause-
way, I thought it a good scheme. He had a pass which read :
" Pass my black boy, Sam, and carriage," and was signed by
a colonel. We had arranged that in case the carriage should
be stopped and questions asked, I was to claim to be a rela-
tive of the colonel on a visit to the family. If the guard at the
bridge refused to let me go over, I was to get out and pre-
tend to be waiting for the return of the carriage, until I could
secede. But, "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang
aft aglee." After waiting all one day and one night for this
chance to ride in a colonel's coach, it turned out in the morn-
ing when we were about ready to start that one of the ladies
of the family had concluded to ride over after the colonel.
Had I been better clad and sufficiently posted as to what regi-
ments were camped beyond the river, it would have been fine
work, and feasible, to have introduced myself to this family
and secured a ride under the protection of the pass. As it
was, I had no time for preparation, and thought best to try
some other plan.

I remained all that day in the negro quarters where two
women were at work carding and spinning wool. About
noon, two of Wheeler's cavalry rode up, hitched their horses
and came into the house and ordered the women to get dinner
for them. I had crawled under a bed when these men ap-
proached the house. One of them said he had been up all
night and would take a nap while the dinner was cooking, so
he came into the room where I was, and lay down on the bed
that I was under. I did not sleep while he was there.

THE SMOKED TANK. 21I

As soon as it was dark, I resumed my journey keeping
the traveled road that led to the river; met a good many peo-
ple, and some on horse-back overtook and passed me. None
of them saw me, however.

My sense of hearing had become so acute that I could
hear even the footsteps of a man long before I could distin-
guish his form by starlight, while the gallop of a horse, I ver-
ily believe I could hear, when listening with my ear to the
ground, for half a mile. Once, while sleeping in the woods in
the daytime, was awakened by the sound of approaching foot-
steps and on looking around, saw a negro at least a hundred
yards away, coming with my dinner.

I had resolved that night, having become well rested, to
cover a long distance. I had not gone far when I came to
where some soldiers had camped by the side of the road. I
made a long detour in the woods to get by them, and when I
came to a road, supposed it was the same I had been on, and
walked until nearly morning before finding out that the sol-
diers were camped where two roads crossed, and that the one
I had taken ran at right angles to the way I wanted to go.
Toward morning, I found a large number of negroes, men
women, and children, sleeping in an old unused store building
at somebody's corners. They had been brought from a plan-
tation near Savannah to keep them from running away to
Sherman. They told me to cross the Salkahatchie and travel
down the west side, and I would come to Sherman's men,

sure.

The next night I traveled to within a mile of where the
rebels under Hardee were building fortifications and guarding
the bridge and causeway that crossed the river and the swamp.
This was the place the negro had proposed to take me over

212 THE SMOKED TANK.

in the carriage. I think he called it Branson's bridge. After
hiding during the day as usual, I concluded to find some negro
who would go with me as a guide, before attempting to pass
the guards and cross the river.

About 1 1 o'clock that night I entered the cabin of an old
negro, to whom I had been directed, and sat talking with him,
by the fire, when four or five "Johnnies" opened the door
without knocking, and came in. They were from a camp
near by. All very young. I began at once to ask them what
regiment they belonged to, what they were doing out so
late, and to the immense delight of the old negro, who was at
first badly scared, I kept them talking, first one and then
another, about soldier life, and Sherman, until they were ready
to go, and not one of them thought of asking me where I
belonged.

These men wanted to buy chickens and eggs, and the old
negro hastened their departure by telling them to come right
along with him and he would show them a black man
who would take them to a plantation where there were plenty.

On his return, the old man said the safest way to cross
the river was to go south to where it spread out, and formed
what was called Whippey Swamp, and that I had better
not try it without having some black man, who knew the
swamp well, for a guide. He then went with me several
miles, and left me with another negro. This man knew of
two negroes, who had been brought from their master's home
near Savannah, and who had run away, and were now trying
to get back. They were now hiding in the woods, waiting
for a night dark enough to enable them to crawl between the
guards that were posted all along the edge of the swamp.
He proposed to put me under their care.

THE SMOKED TANK. 2I3

The next day this man and his wife (they had no
children) left me locked up in their cabin, and went to their
work in some field, so far away that they did not return for
dinner. At night the woman came back alone, saying her
husband had gone to find out about the runaways.

I had eaten supper, and was enjoying a pipe by the fire,
when we were startled by a rapping on the door. The
woman had locked it, by pulling the latch string to the inside.
In other words, the latch string wasn't out. To her question,
"Who's da'?" the answer came: "Soldiers, aunty. What
you got yor do' fastened fah? Hurry up and let us in." She
motioned to me to get into the bedroom, and she made all the
noise she could, so that mine might not be heard. When she
opened the door two men came in. Said they must have
some washing done, and despite her protests, saying she had
worked hard all day, and couldn't possibly do it, they pro-
ceeded to take off the shirts and drawers that she must wash
while they sat by the fire in pants and coats. They paid no
attention, whatever, to her protests; just told her to go right
along and do it, and that she wouldn't get anything for it,
either, if she made any more fuss about it.

In the back part of the bedroom there was a kind of a
window — a square opening in the wall, with a board door
hung on leather hinges, and fastened on the inside. I tried to
open this and get out, but the door fitted into the frame so that it
would not open without noise. The woman probably heard
the noise, and understood what I was trying to do, for she
came into the bedroom and got a padlock and chain, and
proceeded to lock the bedroom door from the outside, putting
the chain through a crack in the partition and hole in the
door. Under cover of the noise she made I pushed the back

314 THE SMOKED TANK.

window open and crawled out. She soon came out to put
her kettle on for the washing, such work usually being done
out of doors, and gave a low whistle. This I answered, and
she came and told me where to hide until her husband
returned.

The two soldiers belonged to some general's body-guard.
The general had put up for the night at the white folks' house
of the plantation, and the guards had camped in the yard.
This the negro. learned when he came back and also where
they were from and all about them. When he was ready to start
away with me we passed along by their camp and I lit my pipe
at their fire and talked awhile with them. Stated to them that I
belonged to one of the regiments that were camped up at the
bridge and was out after provision. Partly because it was my
mother tongue and partly by practice, I had learned the
we 'uns and you 'uns, the broad a's and the no r's until as this
negro and many others told me there was no danger of any
one suspecting me of being from the North.

Accompanied by my negro guide, I walked several miles
to the cabin of another man who knew where the runaways
were concealed. There I had to wait while the runaways
were sent for.

As I sat by the big log fire which was burning in the old-
fashioned fire place, talking to a lot of negroes who had gath-
ered there, about the war, the Northern army and the procla-
mation of Lincoln, that freed every slave, suddenly and with-
out warning, in walked the master.

He was a tall slender man with gray hair and long gray
beard, a typical Southern gentleman, It was so late at night
that we had not expected such an interruption or a guard
would have been placed to give warning. I had noticed the

THE SMOKED YANK. 2I5

black eyes and the shining white teeth of several little pick-
aninnies peeping in at the cracks of the cabin, a little while
before, but did not apprehend any danger from them. One
had gone to the big house and told the massa that there was a
white man in the negro house.

Here he was, anger flashing from his eyes and ready to
resent, if not to punish a violation of a rigidly enforced South-
ern rule. No white man was allowed to enter another's negro
quarter without the consent of the master.

Knowing this, I rose instantly and before the old man had
begun to vent his ire, I was making an apology. "You must
excuse me, sir," I said "for being in your negro quarters with-
out your permission. I belong to General 's body guard.

We are camped at Mr. 's plantation, The large army

under Hurdee near there, have about used up everything on
the place and I came down here to see if I could find some
chickens and eggs for my mess. 1 thought it was too late to
disturb you, and was waiting here while one of your men went
to hunt up some provisions for me. I trust, sir, (the old man
had on a blue Yankee overcoat) that the color of your coat does
not indicate your sentiments. If it does, you will have to
excuse me from making any apology, whatever."

This shot struck home. The old man straightened up
and eloquently repelled the insinuation. He related with pride
the sacrifices he had made to defend his country against the
hired robbers of the black abolition ruler. He had sent his child-
ren and his grandchildren. All of his kith and kin able to bear
arms were in the confederate armies, where they would spill
the last drop of their blood, rather than let the feet of the ruth-
less invader trample the sacred soil of South Carolina. " This
coat, sir, was captured in honorable combat and sent to me

216 THE SMOKED YANK.

as a trophy of the war. As such I am proud to wear it." It
was easy to keep the old gentleman talking. In the meantime,
one of the young negroes slipped out to warn those who had
gone after the runaways, and might be returning, of the situation.
When the old man had talked his talk out, he invited me to go
with him into the house and spend the night. Said he had a
•relative there on a visit who was a young man and a soldier
like myself. An officer of Wheeler's cavalry. Thought two
soldiers would enjoy visiting together. He pressed the in-
vitation in truly chivalrous fashion. I regretted very much
that I was obliged to return as soon as possible to camp and
could not therefore accept. Then he pressed me to just come
in and have a glass of peach brandy and a cigar. To get
around that, I pleaded great haste and promised to come down
the next day and call on his relative and swap war stories with
him. The planter returned to his house not seemingly well
pleased, and I did not linger there to learn the effect his
report might have on the visiting officer from Wheeler's
cavalry.

I was then taken about two miles and put in charge of the two
runaway negroes. They had arranged to cross the swamp
that night. Their preparations were all made. They had an
ax, some pitch pine torches, and had selected a place where
there were weeds and brush, to cross the beat of the rebel
guard.

We passed the guard and gained the edge of the swamp.
Here our first difficulty was the thin ice that had formed on
all of the still water. This was the coldest night I had
experienced in that state and the only one that I remember
being cold enough to freeze ice on a stream.

To break this ice without making sufficient noise to alarm

THE SMOKED YANK. 217

the guard, rendered our progress for the first two or three
hundred yards exceedingly slow.

When fairly into the swamp, we lit the pine torches.
Here we found the undergrowth of brush and vines
almost impenetrable. The water was from two to
four feet over that part of the swamp that would have been
dry ground during the summer season. The streams where
the current was we either had to swim or bridge by cutting
small trees and falling them across the stream. There was ice to
break wherever there was no current. We were soon wet
from head to foot, often falling in the matted vines and some-
times stepping into deep holes. One of the negroes was of
middle age, the other a mere boy. A hardy man used to ex-
posure can stand an hour or so of that kind of work and call it
rather tough, but a whole night's struggle through thorns
and briars, on turning logs and slippery poles, sometimes
breaking ice, sometimes swimming in ice-cold water, will try
the endurance of the toughest man. The boy's courage soon
gave out. When we came to a small island where there was
dry ground, he lay down, and declared, his limbs shaking and
his teeth chattering all the while, that "he would radda' die
right den and da' dan to go eny fudda'." He would not be per-
suaded and we could not carry him. The man cut a good,
withy switch and warmed his jacket.

It was broad daylight when we got over, so numbed and
stiffened with cold that we could scarcely move. We had
kept a torch burning, otherwise we could not have built a fire.
I thought I never would get warm, that my teeth would never
cease to chatter, nor my body to ache. I stayed by that fire
all day, striving, in vain, to get warm. At night a negro,
sent by the runaways, took me to his cabin, and doctored me

218 THE SMOKED TANK.

up with pepper tea and hot victuals, then wrapped in quilts
and hid in a fodder house, I remained that night, and the next
day. I did not deem it prudent to keep in company with the
runaways, because, if captured with them I would surely be
killed, and I could not be seen with them by any white man
without his suspicions being aroused.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME " — THE GRAND OLD FLAG AND
THE BOYS IN BLUE 1 AM DUBBED "SMOKED YANK."

I was now on the west side of the Salkahatchie, between
thirty and forty miles from Pocotalago, where a portion of
Sherman's army was in camp. There were no more rivers
or swamps in my way and there was a well traveled road to
follow, but there were swarms of rebel cavalry and rebel
citizens all around me, watching for the approach of Sherman's
army, picking up deserters and moving their slaves and other
property to more secure places. There were white men on
guard at every plantation and the negroes were in such a state
of anxiety and terror, and so suspicious of a white man, that I
found it almost impossible to communicate with them. They
seemed afraid to talk with me or to help me in any way, lest
I should turn out to be a spy, seeking to betray them.

I was obliged to use the utmost caution and to travel only
by day because I could get no guide, and if I traveled at
night, I could not tell where or when I might run on to the
patrols or ambushed guards. Wearily and stealthily I crept
along the edge of the swamp a mile or so from the road, mak-
ing only ten or twelve miles in a day. Often when I could
not find cotton or fodder in which to hide, I had to shiver with
cold all night. The last three or four days were the most dif-
ficult and trying of my journey. I did not get food but two

220 THE SMOKED TANK.

or three times and I hardly slept at all, but the thought of
freedom now so near nerved me up and in a measure com-
pensated for lack of food and sleep.

About nine o'clock in the forenoon of February ist, I
began to hear a rumbling sound which I knew must be made
by loaded wagons, moving on the road. Whether they
belonged to retreating rebel or an advancing Union army I
could not tell, and I dared not take the risk of finding out.

About noon as I was moving cautiously along, peering
in all directions from behind one tree before slipping to
another, suddenly there burst upon my listening ears, the joy-
ous notes of " The Girl I Left Behind Me," played by a full
brass band. I knew that there was no rebel army with brass
bands in that vicinity, and I started on a full run toward the
welcome sound.

Reader, I can but faintly describe to you the kaleidoscopic
pictures which flashed across my mental vision during those
supreme moments, as I ran, with hope before and fear behind.
Home, father, mother, brother, sisters, the grand old flag, the
boys in blue, these, for an instant before me, and my feet
seemed to spurn the passing ground — then, as the deeds of a
lifetime rush together into the memory of a drowning man —
there rose up every scene that I had witnessed, or heard
described, of the tortures inflicted on escaped prisoners brought
back; the tearing by blood hounds, the hanging by the thumbs,
the agonies of the stocks; these behind, and I would turn in
mortal terror, almost hearing the halt! halt! of dreaded pur-
suers. Thus, with mingled feelings of joy and fear, I ran on
for nearly a mile through thick woods. Coming to an opening
in the woods I climbed on to a fallen tree, and there across a
field, marching in the road, with band playing, and colors

THE SMOKED TANK. 221 ,

%ing> g° the b°ys in blue. I take off my hat and try to
shout. I cannot. My heart is in my throat. My strength is
gone. I recline against the limbs of the tree, and sob and cry
like a child, and wonder whether my strength will come back,
or whether I must sit there helplessly, and let that army
goby.

There was a slough in front of me, across that a house,
and a road leading from the house down the side of the field
to the road where the army was marching. Two men ride
up to the house, and as they see me, and draw their revolvers,
my strength returns. I throw up my hands and call to them
not to shoot, that I am an escaped prisoner.

These men belonged at the headquarters of Hazen's
division of the Fifteenth Army Corps. One of them was an
orderly, and the other, Pete McDowell, was quartermaster.
McDowell was from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where one of the
companies of my regiment was enlisted, and I had no trouble
in satisfying him that I was what I represented myself to be.
They secured for me a place to ride, and I camped that night
with General Hazen's orderlies. These were all young men,
about my own age, and they treated me with great kindness.
They sat up that night until a late hour, listening to my
account of prison life, and of my escape. One of them, a
bright young man, who was General Hazen's private orderly,
and who was nick-named Stammy, because he stammered,
declared that I had earned the garter, and he insisted on
performing the ceremony of knighthood before I went to bed.
He had noticed my unavailing efforts to remove with soap
and water the effects of pitch-pine smoke from my hands and
face, and so, drawing his sword, he delivered an impromptu,
Os)

222 THE SMOKED TANK.

humorous harangue, slapped me on the back with the fiat of
the blade, and dubbed me " The Smoked Tank.'1''

I kept no diary from the i8th of January to the ist of
February, because I lost my pencil and could not get another.
The morning after reaching the army, I wrote "February 2."

"The army was in motion early this morning. I had
breakfast — never knew before how much I liked coffee —
then rode with Stammy, General Hazen's orderly, up to Gen-
eral Sherman's headquarters. I reported to the adjutant-gen-
eral. The general was standing near, heard me, and took
me into his room. He seemed very much concerned about
the condition of the prisoners at Florence. He made notes on
a map of all that I could tell him about the rebel armies and
the places where I had crossed the large streams and swamps.
He said that some ambulances would go back to Pocotaligo to-
day and that I could go with them and go home, or could go
with the army to the sea again, and then go home. I told
him I preferred to remain with the army. He called the ad-
jutant and told him to see that I was provided for. The ad-
jutant said he would get me a horse and arms and that I could
join the escort. I prefer to remain with the boys at Hazen's
headquarters with whom I am already acquainted."

I rode that day with Stammy in a two-horse carriage which
he had captured, and was taking along, as he said, to give the
old man (meaning Hazen,) a ride once in awhile. Stammy was
the pet of the division. I still wore my rebel jacket, the
same that Barrett took from me, but which I had recovered
before leaving Florence. As we rode along every now and
then some soldier would call out and say, " Hello there, Stammy!
Where did you get that Johnnie? " Stammy would say, "Th-
th-is a-a-int n-n-no J-J-Johnnie, th-th-is is a Smo-o-ked Yank."

THE SMOKED YANK, 223

In this way he introduced me all along the line, and Smoked
Tank was the only name I was known by in that army.

Within a few days I secured a horse, revolver, and carbine,
and began to take part in the' great march. My regiment
was not with Sherman's army, and I was, therefore, a detach-
ment of myself, commanded only by myself. I got acquainted
with Howard's scouts and rode with them whenever they had
work to do that I cared to take part in, but whether with
them or with the common "bummers," I was always at the
head of one or the other of the columns. The following is a
sample from my note book :

"Feb. p. Second Division, i5th Corps, reached the south
branch of the Edisto to-day. The bridge had been partly
destroyed- Some logs were piled up on the other side form-
ing a kind of breastwork. Myself and three others were on
the advance. It looked as though there might be rebs behind
the logs. I left my horse and crawled along on the inside of a
corn-field fence to find out. About eighty yards from the logs
I stopped behind a clump of china trees. As I lay there on
the ground watching, I saw a man's head over the logs. I
was just drawing a bead on him, when about twenty rebels
arose with a yell and fired at me. The balls struck all around
me and sent the bark flying from the trees. They called out.
" Come in you \ ank ! Come in you Yank !" There was
enough of the bridge left for a man to cross on. I had no
notion of coming in. As soon as our boys farther back began
to fire, the rebs dodged down, and I got up and ran through
the corn-field. They fired on me again, but I was not hit,
though it was a close call — shall be more careful hereafter."

The night before the city of Columbia was captured,
Hazen's division camped near the river opposite the city. The

224 THE SMOKED TANK.

rebels shelled us during the night. I slept that night near
Hazen's tent with my head against the body of a large tree.
In the morning before I had made my toilet, General Logan
rode up to see Hazen. As he sat on his horse near my tree
waiting for Hazen to dress and come out, a cannon-ball passed
through the top of the tree cutting off some limbs. Hazen
came out of his tent, and Logan, who was in a jovial mood,
with a gesture toward the city, said: "Hail, Columbia,
happy land, if this town aint burned, then I'll be damned!"

A little while after I saw Logan again. He had a rifled
cannon in a road that led to one of the burned bridges. When
the gunners had the cannon loaded, Logan would sight it then
climb on to the high bank beside the road, adjust his field-
glass, give the order to fire, and watch to see where the ball
would strike. If I remember rightly, he was aiming at the
State House, and aiming well, for he would wave his hat and
call for three cheers for South Carolina after each discharge.
He was having a high old time.

When the pontoon bridge was ready I crossed it with
Howard's scouts and rode into the city. We were the first
into the city and saw many rebel soldiers, officers and men,
taking leave of their friends.

That night the great fire broke out which destroyed a
large portion of that beautiful capital, and left thousands of
people houseless and homeless. Many of these applied for
permission to accompany our army when we continued our
march. They were called refugees, and were divided up
among the divisions of the i5th corps. General Hazen asked
me to take charge of the refugee train that was assigned to his
division. I did so. Ten infantrymen were detailed as guards
and foragers and placed under my orders, and I was instructed

THE SMOKED TANK. 225

to subsist my command from the commissary department of
the enemy. I soon had the infantrymen well mounted on
captured mules and horses, and while I had charge of them,
Hazen's refugees did not suffer for anything that the state of
South Carolina could furnish. There were some old men,
but the greater portion of these refugees were women and
children. Among those in my train were the wife and two
charming daughters of a Lieutenant Thompson, who was one
of the officers at Florence prison at the time I escaped.

At Fayetteville, N. C., General Sherman issued an order
requiring all of the refugees and escaped prisoners to go with
an infantry regiment down the Cape Fear river to Wilming-
ton. I started with the rest, supposing that I would have
charge of my train as before. We traveled until noon and
then stopped for dinner. I rode up to the officer who had
been placed in command and made some inquiries. He in-
formed me that the refugees from that time on must forage
for themselves. I suggested that it would be better to have
a party of infantrymen mounted, and undertook to tell him
how the refugee trains had previously been managed. He
cut me short, and in a pompous manner ordered me to go
back where I belonged, saying he would send for me when he
needed advice. My recollection is, that Sherman had sent
this officer away from the army because his services were not
considered indispensable. Not caring to serve under such a
commander, I rode back that night and reported to General
Hazen the next morning.

From Fayetteville to Goldsboro, the rebel General John-
son was in our front and on our left flank, and there was con-
siderable fighting every day. During the battle of Bentons-
ville my desire to see the fighting led me too far to the front,

226 THE SMOKED YANK.

and I came near being gobbled up by a squad of rebel cavalry
that I ran on to in some thick woods. Reaching a safe posi-
tion, concluded to find General Sherman, so as to see how a
great commander would act while a battle was in progress. I
found him and his staff in the yard in front of a farm house.
The general was walking back and forth in the shade of some
large trees. When not receiving messages and sending orders
he acted like a very nervous and greatly excited man. He had
a cigar in his mouth, and stepping up to an officer who was
smoking, asked him for a light. The officer handed him his
cigar. As the general lit his own cigar he seemed to be list-
ening to the noise of the battle. Suddenly he turned, dropped
the officer's cigar on the ground, and walked off puffing his
own. The officer looked at him a moment then laughed,
picked up the cigar and continued his smoke.

When we reached Goldsboro, I learned from General
Hazen that Sherman was going to City Point to meet General
Grant, and that the army would probably remain sometime in
camp. I concluded to go .home. I had a fine English fox-
hunter mare that I had captured on the march. She was the
best riding horse I had ever ridden, and very handsome. Gen-
eral Sherman's adjutant-general had noticed and admired my
horse, and when I learned that Sherman was about to go to
City Point, I told the adjutant-general that if he would arrange
so that I could go home from Goldsboro on the first train,
that I would make him a present of the fox-hunter. He so
arranged, and I left Goldsboro on the train which took Sherman
and some of his staff to New Berne. From there I proceeded
to Washington, where through the influence of the letters pro-
vided for me by the adjutant-general, I secured at the war
department without delay, back pay, commutation of rations

THE SMOKED YANK. 227

and clothing for the time I was in prison, and transportation
home. A few days after my strange dream came true, ex-
cept that I met my father first on the hill.

THE END.

"..